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6 CONTENTS

V. THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE EVEN AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE
NDH

23. The Efforts of the Vatican to Save the NDH

24. Archbishop Stepinac Preserves the Ustasha Booty

25. Andrija Artukovic: "I Was Guided by the Moral Principles

of the Catholic Church." 419

26. Two Secret Documents on Catholic Priests' Help in the Flight 421

Afterword 425

Appendix I: Report of the "Boro Dedijer Foundation for Peace"

on the Work of the Russell Tribunal of 1 March 1985 429

Appendix II: From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 433

Appendix III: Decree of Omar II from Koran-al-Raya 436

Appendix IV: From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 438

A Preliminary Note on the Historical Background of the Present Yugoslav Crisis

Mihailo Markovic

In order even to begin to understand the present complex and dramatic situation in
Yugoslavia, especially the nature of the national conflict in Croatia, one must take into
account several historical facts.

(1) Both the Serbian and Croatian peoples developed powerful medieval states: Croatia
flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Serbia especially in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. A strong sense of ethnic identity and national pride is grounded on
those memories of past greatness. Unfortunately, these two peoples of common South
Slavic origin, speaking nearly identical languages, suffered a series of divisions. Croats
accepted Catholicism and came under the zone of influence of the Vatican, whereas Serbs
established their independent Orthodox church in the fourteenth century. In 1102,
Croatia was conquered by Hungary and became a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire
until the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918. Serbia lost its independence in 1459 and became
a part of the Ottoman empire until its liberation in the nineteenth century. Thus the
demarcation line between the Roman and Byzantine civilizations, the Roman Catholic

A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

and Greek-Orthodox churches, and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Turkish empires
separated Serbs and Croats for centuries.

(2) To escape brutal Turkish repression, hundreds of thousands of Serbs moved out of the
Ottoman empire and into the regions of Krajina and Slavonia (areas of the present-day
conflict) in the seventeenth century. They were well received by Austrian authorities,
given free land, various privileges, and a high level of autonomy, with the obligation to
defend the borders from the Turks. They were ruled directly by Vienna and were never
subordinated to any Croatian authorities who were ruled by Hungary. In the nineteenth
century, when Croatian intellectuals began to make plans of national liberation and their
own national state, they found the existence of more than one million Serbs in Krajina
and Slavonia an intolerable "obstructing factor." While some Croats saw the solution in
the creation of a common Yugoslav state with Serbs and Slovenes, most of them believed
that Serbs must somehow be eliminated by forcing them to accept Catholicism and
Croatian national identity or by expelling them. Thus, with Ante Starcevic in the late
nineteenth century, a vehement, purely racist Serbophobia developed, which continued to
exist with the parties of Frank and Pavelic in the first part of the twentieth century. It
flared up again with the nationalist Croatian mass movement in 1970-1971 and today
finds its conclusion in the present ruling party in Croatia (Croatian Democratic
Community).

(3) As a part of Austro-Hungary and its army, Croats had to fight Serbs on Serbian
territory during World War I. Realizing the inevitable defeat of Austro-Hungary near the
end of the war, Croats decided to join Serbs and bring into existence a new state of unified
South Slavs. Their decision to enter Yugoslavia was voluntary. But it was made under the
pressure of several unfavorable circumstances: they faced payments of heavy war
damages; they were defenseless against the social revolution approaching from Hungary
and Bavaria in 1918; and they had to face the loss of the entire Dalmatian coast, which
was promised by the Allies to Italy (according to the 1915 London Treaty) as a
compensation for entering the war against Austro-Hungary. Yugoslavia was for them a
marriage out of interest which, they believed, could be dissolved later. For this dissolution
strong separatist forces worked incessantly in both the first (1918-1941) and the second
Yugoslavia (1945-1991).

(4) The important fact is that Croatia did not enter Yugoslavia as a state with recognized
borders. It was neither a state nor did it have state borders since 1102. During all those
centuries it was divided into Slavonia, Croatia proper, and Dalmatia. The former two were
ruled by Hungary, the latter and Serbian Krajina by Austria. As a matter of fact,
Yugoslavia was created by the free kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro and by three

South-slavic nations that lived within the territory of Austro-Hungary: Croats, Serbs, and
Slovenes.

(5) Invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany was an occasion for separatist Croatian
forces, organized in the Ustasha party of Ante Pavelic, to establish an "Independent State
of Croatia" under direct protection of Hitler and Mussolini. Taking inspiration from the
Nazi persecution of the Jews, the Croatian fascist government tried to implement a "final
solution" for Serbs (that "obstructing element" in Croatia): one third had to be killed, one
third expelled, and one third converted to Catholicism. One of the worst genocides during
World War II took place in Croatia. In one huge concentration camp alone—Jasenovac—
750,000 Serbs were exterminated, together with Jews and Gypsies (according to German
sources). Only those Serbs survived who escaped to Serbia or to the woods, where they
organized into a national liberation army. The army was already created in April 1941,
three months before the Yugoslav Communist Party invited all Yugoslavs to take up arms
against the fascists.

(6) Surviving Serbs tried to distinguish between bad Croats (like Pavelic and the Ustashe)
and good Croats (like Tito and the partisans). They believed in Tito's policy of
"brotherhood and unity" and agreed not to talk about the past. Leading Croatian
communists invited them to forget about Ustashe crimes and to look only to the future. A
rather ominous sign of what was coming was the fact that those leading Croatian
communists kept diminishing the numbers of Ustashe victims and dismissed any serious
inquiry into those crimes as an expression of Serbian nationalism. And yet Serbs in
Krajina and Slavonia trusted Tito and kept quiet for a long time, in spite of the fact that all
political and cultural rights were denied to them, even those that they had enjoyed in
Austro-Hungary: the right to use their language in the schools and to have their own
press and cultural societies. They got alarmed for the first time in 1970-1971 when
another movement for an independent Croatian state developed that once expressed
extreme hostility toward Serbs. But they were reassured when in December 1971 that
movement was defeated. Then came Franjo Tudjman.

(7) Tudjman was one of Tito's generals and a hard-core communist who became a
militant nationalist by 1970. His party won election in Croatia in 1990 owing to an
extremely nationalist program and substantive material aid from the extreme right wing
(Ustasha) emigration. Tudjman praised the fascist Independent State of Croatia (1941-
1945) in his electoral speeches and expressed the view that the centuries-long aspirations
of the Croatian people were brought to life in that state. What especially alarmed Serbs
were changes in the constitution of the Croatian Republic. Croatia used to be defined as
the state of Croatian and of Serbian people. The official language according to Serbs was
"Serbo-Croatian." Now any reference to

A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND


Serbs was omitted. The language imposed on all citizens of Croatia was "literary
Croatian," a new artificial variant, deliberately made different from the common
vernacular language, spoken by both Croatian and Serbian people. New state symbols
introduced by constitutional changes were the same as those used by the Ustasha state
and associated with the Ustasha crimes.

The next move of Tudj man's government was to systematically dismiss Serbs from any
important positions: managers, heads of departments, university professors, judges, even
ordinary militia men. Thousands of people lost their jobs merely because of their
nationality.

What frightened Serbs in Croatia even more were steps undertaken by Croatian
authorities to secede from Yugoslavia. All federal laws protecting citizens of all
nationalities were suspended, large amounts of armaments were illegally imported and
distributed to paramilitary formations (members of the ruling party), and Ustasha war
criminals returned in large numbers after decades of emigration. Seeing the similarities
with the situation that immediately preceded the massacres of 1941, Serbs in Croatia
started a similar process of self-organization and preparation for self-defense.

II

At this point in early 1990, it would still have been possible to avoid further escalation of
the conflict had Croatian authorities shown any readiness for negotiations. The leader of
the Croatian Serbs, Professor Jovan Raskovic, tried twice to talk to Tudj man and his
Minister of Interior Boljkovac. On both occasions conversations were secretly taped and
published in the daily press in order to damage the reputation of Raskovic with his
followers. With enormous lack of realism the Croatian government declared that the vast
majority of Serbs in Croatia were loyal and obedient citizens of Croatia and that their
leaders were a bunch of troublemakers following the orders of Serbian nationalists in
Belgrade. Thus all existing possibilities for negotiation and a peaceful solution of the
conflict were destroyed.

Serbs in Croatia organized a referendum in which an overwhelming majority supported


the idea of regional autonomy for territories in which Serbs live in majority. When on
June 26 Croatian authorities declared sovereignty and secession of Croatia from
Yugoslavia, Serbs in Croatia declared their determination to stay in Yugoslavia. Croatian
authorities sent recently formed national guards to pacify and subordinate them. By that
time the entire Serbian population became aware that that would be the beginning of a
new Ustasha massacre and that their lives, homes, and families were at stake. They
responded to force by force and that was

the beginning of the present warfare.

The federal presidency gave the Yugoslav army the task of separating the warring parties
and preventing mass bloodshed. However, the federal army was regarded by the Croatian
authorities as the last viable institution of the federal state (which they intended to
disintegrate before seceding) and as an obstacle to their plans to discipline Serbs and
reestablish "law and order** on the territory of their republic. Therefore the federal army
was treated as an enemy and attacked. After much hesitation and vacilation, the army
started striking back and returning fire. This led to a dramatic further escalation of the
conflict.

Foreign interference played a considerable role in that development. Germany and


Austria (allies from both world wars) became heavily involved in favor of Croatia and
Slovenia and demanded international recognition of both seceding republics as well as
sending military forces of the European Community to protect their borders. German
minister of foreign affairs, Hans Dietrich Genscher, declared that each day of Croatian
fighting would push the federal army toward international recognition. The message was
clear and Croatian leadership followed it. Each ceasefire was only a means to reorganize,
better arm their military forces, and to attack again. The most recent act in the escalation
of the warfare on the Croatian side was encircling all federal army barracks on their
territory and cutting off all water, electricity, and food supplies. Surely, no army in the
world would stay idle under such conditions.

The present tragic national conflict in Yugoslavia can be solved peacefully and justly in
only one way: on the ground of the principle of self-determination of people.

Slovenes and Croats have already expressed their common will in the referendums taken
in the spring of 1991 and in the decisions of their national assemblies from June 25 and
26 to secede from Yugoslavia and form their own independent sovereign states. One can
doubt whether it is rational for those nations to sacrifice very important and obvious
political and economic advantages of living in a supranational community in order to
realize a typically nineteenth-century aspiration of establishing a separate national state.
And yet nobody has the right to deny such a delayed aspiration—not other Yugoslav
states, the European Community, or the United Nations. The world can decide to
recognize or not some new states. But it would be wrong to force them to stay together
contrary to their will.

However, if the principle of national self-determination is thus given priority over the
principle of non-violability of state borders, it has to be applied consistently to all
Yugoslav nations—to Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Macedonians as well as to Slovenes
and Croats. The main cause of

14 A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

the present conflict is the refusal of Croatian authorities to grant Serbian people in
Croatia the same right of self-determination that is the ground of their own demand for
secession.
Serbs and other Yugoslav peoples agree that Croats should have freedom to leave
Yugoslavia; clearly without that agreement secession of Croatia would be a much more
complicated affair. However, Croatian authorities do not agree that Serbs in Croatia have
the same right to stay in Yugoslavia with the rest of their people.

It is absurd to hold that the external, internationally recognized state borders of


Yugoslavia can be changed, whereas the internal, administrative, provisional borders
between Yugoslav republics cannot. It is also absurd to hold that the constitutional order
of Yugoslavia can be violated in order to permit secession of Slovenia and Croatia,
whereas the internal order within Croatia or any other Yugoslav republic cannot.

Thus the only consistent, peaceful solution would be an internationally supervised


plebiscite in the controversial territories of Croatia. This would permit each citizen to vote
on whether to leave Yugoslavia within an independent state of Croatia or to stay in
Yugoslavia within an autonomous province of Krajina and of Slavonia. The rights of
minorities who for various reasons decide to stay on the less desirable side of the border
would have to be internationally guaranteed. In some cases, exchange of population could
be negotiated.

The world must not forget that during World War II the fate of Serbs in Croatia was very
similar to that of the Jews. With little imagination one can guess how a Jewish minority
in Germany would feel if another pro-Nazi, racist government would come to power and
begin to make militant anti-Semitic moves. Serbian people in Croatia, described by a poet
as "the remnant of murdered people," deserve a similar understanding.

MIHAILO MARKOVlC Professor of Philosophy, University of Belgrade Member, Serbian


Academy of Sciences and Arts Belgrade, Yugoslavia

Foreword to the American Edition

Since the decline of the Soviet Union and the war against Iraq, which was largely made
possible by the demise of the U.S.S.R., the United States finds itself in a position that the
ancient Romans or the European colonial powers could only have dreamed of. Using the
United Nations as a cover (which has been reduced to this one essential function) and
without fear of any military opponent, the U.S.A. rules the entire world. Whether they
appreciate the "new world order" or not, U.S. citizens must keep themselves better
informed about the state of the world than ever before; for they who—nolens volens—
have been put into a position of power over all other peoples of the world now have the
responsibility of becoming knowledgeable about the histories and cultures of the many
peoples under American influence.

The current situation in Yugoslavia is a case in point. While the present edition of this
book is being printed—the first English translation ever— a civil war of amazing intensity
is going on in Yugoslavia, the motives, but most of all the gravity, of which are difficult to
understand for the average observer. The essential question of the conflict is: whether the
border regions of the old Yugoslavian province of Croatia,* which are mainly inhabited by
Serbs, should be affiliated with Serbia according to the model of the eastern regions of the
former German Reich, which had been mainly inhabited by Poles after World War I; or
whether they should remain under Croatian government. There is also the question of a
harbor for

♦Croatia's extremely advantageous borders with Serbia are, among other things, a legacy
of Hitler.

FOREWORD TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

Serbia, which would be cut off from the sea after a separation based on historical borders.
The reason for the interference of the Serbian-dominated federal army in favor of their
compatriots—the reason they also gave repeatedly at the so-called "peace negotiations" in
The Hague forced on them by the European Community—is the fear that their
countrymen left under Croatian rule would sooner or later become victims of genocide or
compulsory assimilation. How very founded these fears are this book proves with its
crushing abundance of horrible but little known facts.

These facts, however, are little known not only to the American public, well out of harm's
way, but (and this will surprise) also to the European public, which lives not only close to
the theater of war but was involved in the war at the same place only fifty years ago. The
reason for this lies with the perpetrators responsible for the atrocities, documented here
for the first time to this extent: Hitler indirectly, who for a long time has been very handy
as the source of all atrocities, and directly, the still so powerful Catholic Church.

And here the American reader is particularly addressed. It is obvious that the Catholic
Church, though by no means as powerful in the United States as in Europe, has in the
past been courted and given preference by the U.S. government; for the Church was
excellently suited as an ally in the destruction of the main military opponent during
World War II. Yet now, since this goal has been achieved, U.S. citizens should ask
themselves, not only for moral reasons but also in their own interest, whether this utterly
determined organization, prepared to take any action to its advantage,* should be
continued to be given privileges. One such privilege— and certainly not the least
important one—has been up to now the public silence about the crimes of the Church.
This book breaks the silence at an important time and anyone who spreads its message
increases this morally so necessary break. Besides the fact that the military reasons for
keeping silent about the truth of the Catholic Church's very determined secular politics
have long since become obsolete, there is another, higher motive to reject this historical
privilege: namely the conviction that the historical truth should come to light in any case.
No free citizenry should tolerate the writing of history slanted in favor of a political ally,
the type of history propagated by Orwell's "Ministry of Truth." This thought alone should
override any scruples about attacking a venerable institution such as the Catholic Church.
Any U.S. citizen who realizes this historical truth should consider whether the American
government—whose influence is practically almighty,

*In ancient times the only organization ever able to subdue from within the militarily
invincible Roman Empire.

Foreword to the American Edition

17

particularly in Germany—does well by continuing to allow the German government


(admittedly its most important ally on the European continent) to interfere so massively
in the Yugoslavian civil war in favor of Croatia, that is, the successor state of the
bloodstained Pavelic regime. The German government—the first to recognize the
separatist Yugoslavian governments* —has not only done everything within its power to
cut off the Serbian-dominated rest of Yugoslavia from all transport by air and surface, and
from all essential oil supplies, to force the surrender of mainly Serbian regions to the
Croatian separate state, but also pressures all other European governments—which, after
all, are more or less dependent on it—to agitate against Serbia.

The United States often proudly points to the fact that it is inhabited by free citizens.
These free citizens, out of a sense of moral responsibility, should decide whether their
government ought to continue supporting or even tolerating the German position in favor
of Croatia and against Serbia at exactly the same front-line positions as existed under
Hitler; for the German government will not lift a finger without the permission of the
United States. This book provides the information to facilitate that decision.

December 1991 GOTTFRIED NIEMIETZ

♦Without the historical background that this book makes known, little could be said
against this act.

Foreword to the Second German Edition

When I wrote the preface for the first edition, I did not expect that I could be writing
another for the second edition just nine months later. For along with the intensified
reclericalization of recent years, there has been a general lack of interest in writings of an
enlightening nature, and, in particular, it was to be expected that the press would not
present this book to the public as they do with clerical writings. And in actuality there was
not one single review for months. The concealment in the German press scene was
carried so far that the Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), which regularly promotes its allegedly
liberal attitude, refused to print a paid advertisement intended to present the book to the
public, knowing very well that a book which is not advertised cannot be read by anybody,
and is just as effective as a burned book.
In explanation the SZ indicated that it might be legally prosecuted for printing the ad; of
course they meant the blasphemy article.* However, this did not keep them from refusing
another advertisement—for the journal Ketzerbriefe] —in the same letter, explaining
further that the journal was giving the false impression that in Germany one could be
prosecuted on the grounds of just this [blasphemy] article.

Naturally, the SZ was aware that both reasons were contradictory and furthermore
hypocritical. But they acted with the certainty that the whole

♦According to this article of the German constitution, it is against the law to print
blasphemy against a church or religion.

"fThe periodical Ketzerbriefe, published by the Ahriman publishing house, gives regular
reports about the prosecution of critics of church and religion in Germany.

FOREWORD TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

thoroughly streamlined German press establishment would not break the unanimous
news embargo, and that therefore it was not to be feared that information about these
events would come to light. When thereupon the Ahriman publishing house nonetheless
with a great deal of effort informed the public, especially abroad, about the press ban of
the SZ, they even threatened the publishing house with legal steps if we should further
spread this information. Only when letters began to arrive at the SZ regularly— especially
from abroad—protesting against this modern version of book burning, and when this was
reported abroad, so that they feared that not only their reputation but with it the
confidence in the allegedly objective reporting of the SZ (and thus also of the whole
German opinion-maker cartel) might be damaged, did they refrain from the threatened
measures. Not only that but—one can hardly believe it—they even reported about the
blasphemy trial in Wurzburg against me in a considerably objective form. And after
several foreign newspapers had published reviews, the Zeit printed a long and excellent
(i.e., truthful) review. The one and only reason for these two "miracles*' is that by
informing the public about the advertisement and news embargo, the confidence in the
objectivity of the press was in danger of being shattered. To act against this, they decided
to revoke the news embargo for a short while. Up to now this review has been the first
and so far the only one in Germany.

In view of these difficulties that the publishing house had to contend with, I am especially
pleased that despite all of the unfavorable conditions there was such a great demand for
the book that it has to be reprinted after only nine months.

Before presenting the second edition to the interested reader, I should like to refer to a
publication by a Munich lecturer in east and southeast European history that I happened
to come across. The book,* whose author cannot in the slightest be suspected of
anticlericalism, confirms with further facts the main responsibility of the Vatican for the
massacres among the orthodox population that is verfied in detail by Prof. Dedijer in this
work: that it was actually the Catholic Church who committed the crimes, while the
Croatian fascists like compliant marionettes served as "front men" to conceal the identity
of the real perpetrator. The figures that Sundhausen gives in his book verify that at the
time of the takeover, the Ustasha party had only several hundred members, so that they
would never have been in the position to control a country the size of the [former]
Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany] for even one day. In contrast to this, the
Catholic Church has an excellent organization that was fully used in

♦Holm Sundhausen, Geschichte Jugoslawiens {The History of Yugoslavia), Stuttgart,


1982.

Foreword to the Second German Edition

21

Croatia, and by means of which the bloody reign of terror was possible at all. With its
priests the Catholic Church not only provided the leading cadre of the Ustasha fascists,
but, by its various clerical suborganizations (e.g., the cultural associations, etc.) it also
recruited—a fact that Sundhausen also points out—the new members for the Ustasha
party, who were urgently needed for the "great task" which was to be carried out. At this
point I want to stop, as I do not wish to anticipate the book, and herewith I present the
new edition to the public in the hope that this most unknown chapter of Church history
may become just as well-known as the crimes the Church committed in the Middle Ages.

June 1989

GOTTFRIED NIEMIETZ

Foreword to the First German Edition

While Auschwitz over the years has become known to every European school child,
hardly anyone has any concrete idea of what Jasenovac is. Thus this short clarification: In
Jasenovac, a small Yugoslav city in Slavonia on the border with Bosnia, the largest
Yugoslav concentration camp was built during the Second World War—as Auschwitz was
built in German-Polish territory. In this infamous "death camp," over 200,000 people,
mostly Orthodox Serbs, met their death. The reason for their liquidation was solely the
fact that they were not Roman Catholic but of the Orthodox faith. This concentration
camp was built, as were numerous others, by the Yugoslav fascists, the Ustasha (Ustasha
[sing.], Ustashe [pi.] = rebels), who in 1941 proclaimed the "Independent State of Croatia"
(NDH). It was, however, in no way independent, but in reality was a satellite of the Nazis
with a puppet government established by them after their entry into Yugoslavia and
headed by Ante Pavelic, the founder of the Ustasha Party. Jasenovac was thus to a certain
degree a concentration camp administered autonomously abroad by the like-minded
followers of the German fascists.

In contrast to Auschwitz, the reason for this Yugoslav concentration camp not finding its
way into school history books becomes clear immediately when one knows the fascists'
accomplices. What is supposed to be hushed up is in no way another crime committed by
the Nazis or their Yugoslav counterparts, but rather the leading role played by the
Catholic Church in the slaughters carried out not only in Jasenovac but also in all of
Yugoslavia, in which a total of over 800,000 people lost their lives. In contrast to Hitler,
who lost the war and therefore can no longer affect recorded history, the Church has
maintained its position of power until today more

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION

or less unchanged. This power does not ultimately rest on ignorance of its history—and
the Church knows that all too well. Since it could not prevent its "doings" in the Middle
Ages from becoming known, it employs all of its available means to keep its recent crimes
under cover. For otherwise the rug would be pulled from under its claim that it has
changed.

The significance of this historical lie is proven by a "blasphemy case" in which I was active
as the defender. In 1984 the Gottingen atheist Birgit Romermann was charged with
"libeling a religious confession" (§ 166 of the Penal Law Book), because in an
informational brochure in reference to the grand total of murders by the Catholic Church,
she drew the conclusion that this institution is "one of the biggest crime organizations in
history." The charge against Romermann was founded—as was the condemning
pronouncement from the Superior Court judge—with this claim: It is well known that the
Church in the course of its history has committed some crimes. But because of the
generally held definition, Mrs. Romermann has insinuated that the Vatican has not
changed and even in modern times has committed crimes. This can be proven untrue and
is therefore slander.

While preparing the defense, I discovered the book by the well known Church historian
Karlheinz Deschner: Ein Jahrhundert Heilsgeschichte {A Century of the Sufferings of
Christ). In it he describes the massacres among the Orthodox population in Croatia in the
years 1941 to 1945, in which numerous Catholic priests took part, especially in influential
positions such as the Commandant of Jasenovac, the Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic Maj-
storovic. In a speech for the defense—in anticipation of a pronouncement of innocence—I
made reference to these modern crimes; however, I was obliged to learn that the judges
simply skipped this part of history and condemned Mrs. Romermann. Whereas I was
initially perplexed by this judgment—since with an objective assessment of history one
can come to no other conclusion than did Mrs. Romermann, or such a conclusion must at
least be possible in a democracy, considering the background of undeniable facts (nobody
objects when the Nazis are called criminals)—it became clear to me after a short while
why the judges were able to deny this additional dark chapter of church history: They did
not have to fear an enlightened public, because with the exception of Deschner's book,
there is until now no other source of information in the German language.

On the basis of these considerations, I came to the conclusion that this "ignorance"—
arrogance of power would be a more fitting expression— could be countered only with a
broadly distributed elucidation. I therefore decided to become active myself and to see to
the distribution of this suppressed information. At this time I met the internationally
known historian Professor Doctor Vladimir Dedijer and learned from him that he was just
at that time working on a comprehensive study of this subject,

Foreword to the First German Edition

25

which was to appear in Serbo-Croatian. With the cooperation of the Ahriman publishing
house, I was able quickly to win him over to the idea of publishing his book also in
German.

The book is a compilation of documents and various contemporary testimonies, which


appear for the first time in German. The selection and compilation of the texts and
documents was carried out by Professor Dedijer, who is recognized internationally as an
authority in this field. The author is known to German readers especially as the president
of the Russell Tribune. With the same fearlessness with which he in this function
condemned among other things the unconstitutional Berufsverbot in the Federal
Republic of Germany, he brings light into this additional dark chapter of Church history
and shows through comprehensive documentation the extensive participation of the
Vatican. When the original work appeared about a year ago in Yugoslavia, there was no
lack of reaction: The Church immediately set its whole propaganda machine in motion. It
was hit in a sensitive spot.

The text presented here is a shortened version of the original under the approval of
Professor Dedijer. A compilation of various book excerpts made as complete as possible
necessarily leads to overlaps. The same is true for documents that depict the same facts.
Since it is my intention to publish a book on this subject precisely for the nonhistorian,
that is, for the interested lay person, I have shortened the repetition present in the
Yugoslav original or have selected only a few of an abundance of documents on the same
subject. In doing so I was very careful to avoid losing any essential information. I hope I
fulfilled this stipulation.

In closing, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this book was originally written
for the Yugoslav public, i.e., it assumes a certain knowledge of historical background and
relationships that cannot be known automatically to the German reader. For this reason I
have prefaced the work with a short historical introduction, which should fill this gap.
With these remarks, I would like now to turn the book over to the interested readers, but
not without thanking especially the Yugoslav translator [Durdica Durkovic] of this long
and ponderous volume of documents, as well as Ursula Dunckern from the Ahriman
publishing house, without whose dedicated effort the manuscript would never have
received its final form on time, and those numerous volunteer helpers, who must remain
unnamed but through considerable labor in their normally very scarce free time made it
possible for this book to appear in the present, technically perfect and attractive form;
their only motivation was merely a service to the suppressed historical truth on which
this volume sheds light.

September 1988

GOTTFRIED NIEMIETZ

Editor's Preface

"Himmler of the Balkan is Dead" proclaimed the headline of a little newspaper article
published at the beginning of this year. If one would not recognize the "Fourth Estate" in
our land, one would—in ignorance of the historical facts—only with great difficulty
recognize that behind this "ten-liner" lies the tragedy of a whole nation. The person
described as "Himmler of the Balkan" is Andrija Artukovic, Interior Minister of the
"Independant State of Croatia" (NDH) proclaimed in 1941. After a delay of 35 years, the
extradition request urged by the state of Yugoslavia since 1951 was finally honored in
1986, although it was known already back then to the USA that Artukovic was guilty of
the genocide of over 800,000 people, not to forget the violent assault on a further
240,000 people who were forced to be "rebaptized." What the article neglects to say and
what is also known to very few: in Catholic Croatia, the "Kingdom of God," everyone who
did not belong to the Catholic faith—for the most part Orthodox Serbs—were compelled to
convert to Catholicism. Those who refused—as well as many who had already converted—
were murdered, usually after long torturing in which the order of the day was the cutting
off of noses, ears, or other body parts or poking out eyes. Children were cut out of the
bodies of pregnant women and subsequently beheaded; people were chopped to pieces
before the eyes of loved ones, who were forced to catch the spurting blood in a bowl, etc.,
to list only a few horrors as example. These butcheries assumed such an extent that even
German Nazis, who in this regard were not exactly sensitive, protested.

If this historical fact is little known where we are, another fact completely escapes our
knowledge: the decisive involvement of the Vatican in these

28 EDITOR'S PREFACE

massacres. These "Catholic Battle Celebrations" (Karlheinz Deschner) in the "Kingdom of


God" were also no more of a "mistake"—how can one err a hundred million times over—
than all the other deeds of the Catholic Church in its nearly 2000-year history. It was
much more the consequent continuation of the policy pursued by the Vatican for
centuries in the Balkan area, which during the Second World War attained only its
temporary conclusion.

The Orthodox Church has been since the beginning a thorn in the eye of the Roman
Curia, and its elimination at least since the fall of Constantinople seemed possible. To
that extent, the Balkan has been since then of decisive importance to the Catholic Church.
It was the dividing line between Catholicism and Orthodoxy and therefore was built up as
the bulwark against the Orthodox Church, whose further expansion was feared. Already
for centuries Papal hatred has been levied loudly against the Orthodox Serbs. Pope Lucius
III called the Serbs "slanderers of the Holy Church, plague of the Church, thieves of
priestly income," etc. Pope Honorius III (1221) scorned them as "foxes, rebels, heretics,
perfidious beasts." Gregory IX (1234) painted the phantom of the perfidia hereticorum
Slavoniae on the wall, while Boniface VIII (1298) called them "evil vermin." For Pope
John XXII (1319) Bosnia was a "land of heretics and filthy spots of infidelity." For
Clemens VI (1351) the Serbs were iniquitatis filii and fidei Christianae adversl And the
record holder among the mass murderers in the name of the Church, the Spanish
inquisitor Torquemada, scorned the Orthodox as pestilentes homines.

In regard to the history of the Serbs, in order to justify the mass executions—as if one
could justify them at all (!)—abominations of lies were spread especially by the Vatican
regarding their nature, saying that the Catholic Serbs had been forced to accept the
Orthodox faith and were now being led back into the lap of the holy Church; therefore,
the historical facts must be listed briefly here:

In the Middle Ages, the Serbs were a separate independent nation on their own territory,
which corresponds approximately to the southern part of present-day Yugoslavia. After
their defeat by the Turks at the "Battle of Kosovo" in 1398, they moved northward into
areas that were under Hungarian rule. After Austria had united with Hungary in 1526 and
formed a military belt from the Adriatic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, this area was
populated as a protective wall against the Turks mainly with the Serbs, who were known
as good warriors, and at the same time the Serbs were always living in the hope of
someday being able to return to their former areas now occupied by the Turks. And
although the Serbs in the course of time were recognized as lawful citizens, they saw
themselves continually exposed to the greatest of difficulties. North of the areas they

occupied lay Croatia, a strictly Catholic land. And every subject who was not of Roman
Catholic faith was exposed to appropriate persecution if he resisted conversion. The
"missions" carried out by the bishops of Zagreb and Senj with the aid of Viennese Jesuits
were commonly accompanied by military actions although Austria stood officially and
formally on the side of the Serbs. In brief: the Serbs during this whole time found
themselves in a state of self-defense in order to be able to maintain their religion and
their national identity. Their formally existing rights were severed because they were not
Catholic, to the point of facultative withdrawal of freedom and even torture. And although
Kaiser Joseph as King of Hungary in 1706 granted the Serbs civil independence, the
military pastor of Lika, Marko Mesic, could publicly announce: "Convert to Catholicism or
disappear." In the eighteenth century the Croats even demanded laws in parliament that
were to make life in this country impossible for the Serbs and the Orthodox Church.
Among other things Serb schools were to be forbidden as well as the construction of
Orthodox churches; all possessions were to be confiscated from the Orthodox cloisters,
etc. However, since Maria Theresia depended on the might of the Serb military units, she
did not yield to these demands.

Whereas in the beginning harassment and open violence originated mainly from the
official Church representatives, the anti-Serb, in reality anti-Orthodox, propaganda in the
nineteenth century was also common among the Croatian populace. At this time a key
figure, a certain Ante Starcevic, appeared, who announced: "The Serbs are a task for the
slaughterhouse." He founded a political movement that was continued after his death by
Josip Frank and from which, after the coalition with Croatian clerics, the Frankian Party
was formed. This, however, collapsed in 1918 after the defeat of Austro-Hungary when
Serbia and Montenegro along with Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, the Hercegovina, and other
areas united into the common state of Yugoslavia.

In this newly founded, multiethnic state, the Orthodox Church was the largest religious
community, followed by the Catholic Church; in addition, there was a Jewish minority
and a strong Islamic minority. There were indeed tensions, especially between the
Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Croats. The latter demanded their independence, which
was strongly supported by the Croatian Peasants Party (HSS) under its leader Dr. Vlatko
Macek. In regard to religion, however, complete freedom and equality reigned, even for
the Catholic Church in predominantly Orthodox areas. Its press, schools, lecture series,
hospitals, and other organizations flourished thoroughly, and it enjoyed "the most
complete freedom of action," as even Dr. Anton Korosec, Slovene Catholic Church leader
felt obligated to state— "even without a concordant." And Vjekoslaw Wagner, a Catholic
priest,

30 EDITOR'S PREFACE

stated that "such progress is possible only in a country in which religious tolerance and
equality are living reality." Nevertheless, there were now as before clerical elements in
Croatia who could not stand living in a country that was not purely Catholic. One of them
was the former attorney from Agram (Hercegovina), Dr. Ante Pavelic. In the tradition of
Ante Starcevic, along with the former Austrian officer Slavko Kvaternik and others, he
founded on 7 January 1929, a day after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
under Alexander, the Ustasha Party. Their declared goal was to destroy the Yugoslav state
in order to found an "independent Croatia," the "Realm of God," in which only Catholics
were to have the right to exist. To attain this goal, they availed themselves primarily of
terrorist means such as bomb attacks on passenger trains, etc. Their most prominent
victim was King Alexander who upon a visit in France along with the French Foreign
Minister Louis Barthou was murdered in 1934 in Marseille. For this, Pavelic was
sentenced to death in absentia by a French and by a Yugoslav court. But the Italian
fascists granted him asylum, so that he was able to escape just punishment. It was this
same Pavelic who on 10 April 1941 after the entrance of the German troops had the
"Independent State of Croatia" proclaimed. The proclamation said among other things:
"God's providence and the will of our great allies . . . have ordained that today before the
resurrection of the Son of God, our Independent State of Croatia, too, is resurrected."

This was the beginning of martyrdom for 750,000 Orthodox Serbs, 60,000 Jews, and
26,000 Sinti and Roma (Gypsies).

And what role did the Vatican play during this whole time? What the popes of the Middle
Ages thought about the Serbs has already been explained briefly. And since, as is known,
the Church never abandons its goals and the Pope is actually infallible—when it is a
matter of securing and enlarging the size of the herd—the development in Croatia found
not only the agreement of the popes but they did everything in their power to force it. The
whole second half of the nineteenth century was imprinted with a close cooperation
between the Vatican and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Between the two there was a
type of symbiosis, for the Vatican needed the strictly Catholic monarchy as a bulwark
against the Orthodoxy in the east, as the monarchy at this point in time was the most
solid support of the papacy in Europe: conversely the monarchy needed the good Catholic
sheep. In front of this backdrop arose also the suggestion of Leo XIII concerning the
founding of a "League of Catholic States" with the "Austrian Emperor and the apostolic
king of Hungary" at the head. The Pope especially supported the imperialistic plans of the
imperial monarchy to conquer sizable portions of the Balkan, which ended with the
annexation of Bosnia and of Hercegovina in 1908/09. And contrary to the widely spread
rumor that

he died from grief over the outbreak of war, Pope Pius X died in 1914 more likely from his
blood swelling due to a superabundance of joy, thus causing the papal heart to stop. For it
was not just that Emperor Franz Joseph, who discussed any bagatelle with Christ's
viceroy and who called himself the truest son of the church, declared war on Serbia only
after approval of the pope. Documents show clearly that the latter simply ordered him to!
The "peace pope" had years before this given expression again and again to his regret
"that Austro-Hungary neglected to punish its dangerous Danube neighbor." For him
Serbia was "a gnawing disease that is gradually destroying the marrow of the monarchy
and in time will cause its dissolution." Austro-Hungary has been and remains, according
to the view of the Curia "as an admitted Catholic state the strongest bulwark remaining to
the Church in this century. The dismantling of this bulwark would mean for the Church
the loss of its strongest support. In its struggle against Orthodoxy, it would lose its
strongest champion. As it is absolutely necessary for Austria thus for purely self-
preservative reasons to free its organism from the evil that threatens it,—and if necessary
by force—it is also necessary for the Catholic Church to undertake every effort and to
sanction every effort that can lead to the accomplishment of this goal." This telegram
from the then Austro-Hungarian ambassador in the Vatican, Count Moritz Palffy on the
29th of July, 1914, leaves nothing in doubt. It proves quite clearly—and it wasn't intended
for the public —that the realm of the Church contrary to other views is thoroughly of this
world.

But to the dismay of the Vatican, the war ended in a way that they would not have
wanted; Austro-Hungary fell apart and Yugoslavia came into being. This destroyed for the
time being the centuries-old plans for a bulwark against the Orthodoxy, which is why the
Pope, now Benedict XV, confronted the new state belligerently and didn't recognize it
until a year after its founding—let us not forget in this regard that the Vatican conversely
was the first state in the world to recognize the Third Reich. It could not come to terms
with the idea that Catholics—N.B., amid all imaginable freedoms—would have to live in a
state that was not purely Catholic. And with such states, the Church declares peace only
for a limited time. Its own time, so this book proves, is surely about to come.

But since it first had to recognize this status quo as a reality, the Pope tried to reach his
goal by other means. Thus the Vatican worked with the high clergy of Yugoslavia
intensively on the radicalizing of separatist national movements. From this cooperation
emerged the clerical Nationalist Front, a classic clero-fascist organization. The already
mentioned Ustasha party of Ante Pavelic received a strong influx of Catholic priests, who
very early became the central column of Ustashadom and set up adminis-

32 EDITOR'S PREFACE

trative cadres.

At this time also came the concordat signed with Yugoslavia. To quiet the Catholic Croats
in the country, the young state still under King Alexander had signed a concordat with the
Vatican that was approved by the parliament in 1937 but which eventually had to be
dropped because of massive protests— especially by the Orthodox Church. This concordat
was supposed to create rights for the Catholic Church that the Orthodox Church was not
entitled to. Accordingly the Yugoslav state was supposed to compensate the Catholic
Church, for example, for confiscations that Austria had carried out in the years from 1780
to 1790—which was rejected even by Catholic Austria. Additionally it was to pay a
settlement for the fact that the Church had lost land through agrarian reforms. And it was
not simply that all the norms of the realm opposing the concordat were to be
disempowered: In Article 37 it was even stipulated that any points not covered therein
were to be decided according to Catholic Church law! Yugoslavia thus was to become a
satellite state of the Vatican.

But as always in history—Raymond of Toulouse can verify it from the beyond—


concessions and retreats in the Catholic Church only whet the appetite. Pacelli, the later
Pius XII, who gave us the still valid concordat with the Nazis, immediately threatened:
"The day will come when not a few will regret that they have rejected this magnanimous
and generous offer to their country by Christ's earthly kingdom."—That wasn't just talk.*

GOTTFRIED NIEMIETZ

♦All historical facts are taken from the following books: Avro Manhattan, Terror over
Yugoslavia, London, 1954. Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-1945, Paris,
1962. Karlheinz Deschner, Ein Jahrhundert Heilsgeschichte, vol. II, Cologne, 1983.

Introduction

For me, the question of genocide is not just a matter of law.

I was an eyewitness to the brutal bombing of Belgrade by the German Luftwaffe on 6


April 1941, during which thousands of people were killed and numerous cultural
institutions were destroyed, including the Serbian National Library, which among other
things had contained numerous medieval documents.

In October 1941, I was the political commissioner of the command at Kragujevac when
German army units cold-bloodedly shot 7,000 inhabitants there including whole school
classes along with their teachers. Our headquarters was in the village Toponica, which lay
about 25 kilometers from Kragujevac. We learned of this blood bath when in the
neighboring villages, the women according to an old Serbian tradition broke out in loud
lamentations over the dead. A wave of lamentation went from village to village as the
inhabitants of Kragujevac realized the full extent of the mass murder.

Later I saw with my own eyes in Croatia, Bosnia, and in Hercegovina numerous trenches
into which thousands of Serbian women, men, and children had been thrown with slit
throats. I learned that Orthodox Serbs were forced to convert to Catholicism in great
numbers.

On 17 July 1942, I was staying with the Third Brigade of the partisans near the city of
Prozor. In a written report from those days, I recorded that a battalion of the First
Proletarian Brigade while marching past the cloister Scit were suddenly shot down by
machine guns. In this attack six partisans were killed. A fight broke out and the fortified
cloister was destroyed. We captured several Franciscan monks who were armed with

34 INTRODUCTION

guns. One of them named Victor Sliskovic reported that the German Army had sent
specialists to fortify the cloister. It was defended by a unit of fascist Ustashe and about
twenty monks. 1

On the 27th of July, I met with Milovan Djilas, a member of the chief command of the
partisans. He was in the process of formulating a report to Tito about a massacre of
numerous Serbian farmers in the village of Urije, which had been brutally violated by an
Ustasha unit under the command of Colonel Francetic. Djilas had arrived at the village a
half hour after the massacre. After he had finished his report, 1 asked him to write down
the report in my diary. I am publishing it in this collection of documents as an important
piece of evidence. 2

At the end of 1942, the partisans liberated a large area on the border between Croatia and
Bosnia including the largest city of this region, Bihac. We arrested several Ustashe who
had taken part in mass murders in this area; more than 12,000 people had been
slaughtered.

Mose Pijade, member of the chief command of the partisans, established a commission
that had the task of collecting evidence of war crimes and genocide that had been
committed against the Serbs in this area. I helped him with the work.

We received a lot of information about the concentration camp at Jasenovac, which was
the third largest execution site for innocent people during the Second World War. A group
of prisoners, among them Jewish friends of mine, escaped from this camp. In the village
of Drinic in the liberated area of western Bosnia, their reports were published with my
help; we printed a small brochure that represented the first witness to the happenings in
Jasenovac. 3 A few months ago, a friendly archivist uncovered this unique document
again and placed it at my disposal for publication in this collection.

In the bitter battle of Sutjesca in 1943, the divisions of Germans, Italians, and Ustashe
surrounded 20,000 partisans in the mountains around the Sutjesca river. About 7,000 of
our people were wounded—I was among them—and another 7,000 died, including a great
number of wounded that the enemy slaughtered mercilessly.

Since I had suffered a serious head wound, Tito asked General M. Wilson, the
commander of the allies in the eastern Mediterranean, for permission to have me
operated on in Cairo, because our surgeons did not have the necessary equipment. At the
end of 1943, I went to Cairo, where I underwent an operation from which I recovered
relatively quickly. At this time I met a number of war reporters from England, the USA,
and other countries. They reported rather correctly on what I told them about the war in
Yugoslavia and the victims of genocide. But when I began

to describe the role of the Franciscan monks in the compulsory conversion of the
Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism, not one word about this was published in the newspapers
and magazines of the Allies.

Something similar happened in San Francisco, where in the spring of 1945 I attended the
opening session of the United Nations. There I met with several statesmen and diplomats
as well as with numerous writers, film directors, and actors, and I tried to discuss with
them why the clearly proven participation of the Roman Catholic church in the genocides
in Yugoslavia was a tabu subject. I had the feeling that there was a purposeful and
coordinated news blackout about the genocides in Yugoslavia. Only later did the English
philosopher and humanist Bertrand Russell come to the conclusion that the Vatican was
responsible for the fact that the truth about what really happened in Yugoslavia was
withheld.

From 1945 to 1953, I was the Yugoslav delegate to the United Nations and during this
time took part in the ground work for the convention on genocide.

In addition to the diary that I kept during the war and which contains numerous hard-
proof documents on genocide, between 1945 and 1954 I gathered in Yugoslavia a great
collection of documents of varying origin about genocide. In 1954 in the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, I began to hold lectures on the methodology of
historical research regarding the history of war including genocide. But since I was forced
to abandon my academic position because of my views on the necessity of freedom of
opinion and tolerance, none of my books was published for thirteen years, and I had to
give up my work at the university.

Not until the end of 1959 did I receive permission to travel abroad and there to resume
my teaching at various universities. I taught in Manchester and Oxford, Lund, Stockholm,
and Upsala, Aarhus, Kopenhagen, and Oslo, at numerous universities in the USA
(Harvard, Cornell, Michigan), and finally at the Sorbonne. I conducted several seminars
on the systematic research of genocide. I collected numerous documents on the genocide
of Jews in the second world war and wrote a thorough treatise on this theme that has not
yet been published.

On the initiative and with the support of the Nobel Institute, the Norwegian Institute for
Foreign Policy, and the Staatsvitenskapelig Institute on January 14, 1965, in the Nobel
Hall in Oslo I held a lecture on the subject: "Could the Jews have offered a stronger
resistence to annihilation by the Nazis? A coming to terms with violent and nonviolent
forms of resistence."

I was able to accommodate a large part of my investigations on genocide in the scope of


my work in the Bertrand Russell Tribunal. We first concentrated on theoretical aspects of
genocide, legal, sociological, and philo-

36 INTRODUCTION

sophical aspects, and occupied ourselves then with historical questions about genocide.

The first case that we studied was the genocide in Vietnam by the American regime and
the US Army. Jean-Paul Sartre assigned me the task of making a historical analysis of the
connection between the worldwide increase of despotism and the frequency of genocidal
crimes.

Between 1961 and 19861 participated in the work of the Russell Tribunal and its
committees regarding a dozen cases of genocide throughout the world. (See Appendix I.)

In 1984 I was elected the chair of the committee on the genocide of Serbs and other
peoples in Yugoslavia in the twentieth century, which was established by the Serbian
Academy of Sciences and Arts. In this committee we coordinate the gathering of
documents on genocide in Yugoslavia, but the greatest part of our work is dedicated to
scientific and methodological questions in connection with the investigation of all aspects
of genocide.

In the meantime, I have written several works on the concept of genocide, about its
modern forms in the twentieth century, and on cases of genocide in the past, e.g., in Spain
in the year 1492. 4

Compulsory Conversion and Genocide: Historical Patterns

History shows that a church, as soon as its interests coincide with those of a conquering
state, undertakes compulsory conversions. Every religious organization pursues the goal
of ruling the world as the sole and best religion. Conversely a state, when it conquers
another, instructs the church of its land to force the population of the newly conquered
area to convert so that it will have better control of the latter. Even Jewry—perhaps the
most commonly persecuted religious community in history—undertook compulsory
conversions in its beginnings. When the Jewish army commander John had subdued the
Edomites, he gave them the choice of death, expulsion, or conversion to Judaism. 5
(Appendix II)

Historians have thoroughly studied the development of Islam from a religious sect to a
powerful state religion. The second Mohammedan caliph, Omar Ibn Al-Khattar, beat the
Persians at Cardesia in 637 A.D.; soon thereafter came the conquering of Egypt, Syria, and
Palestine. After the second victory over the Persians, Iran fell under Arabic control; Omar
proclaimed the Koran-al-Raya, which later became the basic law in the Ottoman empire.

All religions that are based on scriptures (Judaism and Christianity) remained protected
from direct eradication; the position of their adherents,

however, was strictly controlled by edict. The Yugoslav author Ivo Andric showed in his
doctor's dissertation that this edict from Omar II formed the basis of the Turkish
dominion in Bosnia up until 1878. It contained several restrictions and was the strongest
weapon to convert Jews and Christians to Islam. (Appendix III)

Buddhism contains numerous elements of tolerance. Nevertheless, to the extent with


which the Indian state consolidated its power, the use of force among religious groups
also increased. When the modern Indian state was finally constituted, the massacre of
Moslems by the Hindus and vice versa greatly increased in intensity. It is estimated that
in the years 1947 and 1948 approximately seven to eight million people were killed. I was
in Calcutta just a few weeks after Ghandi's death and saw with my own eyes the
enormous extent of the gruesome deeds that were committed here out of religiously
based hatred. Even today this hatred is the basis for the tumult and the massacre in the
Punjab. Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, too, was a victim of these hostile conflicts between
Sikhs and Hindus.

History demonstrates numerous examples of compulsory conversions in Christianity. All


Christian churches have taken part: the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, the Protestants,
and the Orthodox, as well as numerous sects such as the Baptists, for example. As we will
see later, compulsory conversions in the age of colonialism were especially frequent. In
this regard, it must be pointed out that compulsory conversion is an important
instrument for subduing conquered peoples. A glance at the history of the expansion of
czarist Russia makes clear that the same pattern was followed here as in western Europe.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which was controled directly by the czars, formed the
most important instrument of imperialistic and nationalistic policy of the ruling circles in
Russia.

One of the main tasks of the church was the Russification of the national minorities in
the conquered lands. In the instructions of the missionaries there was frequently the
indication that after they had converted the members of the national minorities, the
missionaries were to get them to wear Russian clothing, assume Russian names, and give
up their own folk culture. Everyone who was converted was to be given certain privileges
in order to incite conflicts between them and those who refused to be converted. As a
matter of foreign policy, the missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church in connection
with a planned or imminent conquest by the czarist regime frequently had the
preparatory function to assault the economy and the army of the land to be conquered.
Czar Peter the First gave the Russian Orthodox missionaries in China the instructions to
gather information about the Chinese

38 INTRODUCTION

army and military encampments and about trade and foreign influences in China. 6

A similar procedure was practiced by numerous sects, even by those that had the
reputation of being especially tolerant.

Missionary pursuit in Africa and in other continents was closely associated with the
colonialism of European states. Missionaries were frequently sent ahead in order to
prepare the conquering of a country by acting as informants. In many cases the
missionaries represented the best propagandists in the strengthening of the colonial
power in these countries. Historical documents show that even major powers such as
France and the USA, which had introduced the separation of church and state,
deliberately established in their budgets official positions for the financing of missionary
schools and hospitals. Even Great Britain, where there is no separation of church and
state, financed missionary schools, for example in Tanzania and Zambia, in order to gain
influence on the population.

In the New Testament, an apostle is simply an emissary appointed by Jesus who had the
assignment of being an eyewitness and of spreading the doctrine of the kingdom of the
messiah. As we have seen, the Roman Catholic Church dedicates itself to its apostolic
duties with the greatest zeal. For this purpose it has constructed its own organization
within the church and has founded numerous orders to serve this purpose.

The Roman Catholic Church is an organization with extensive economic interests. It


therefore carries out its world mission in arrangement with the moneyed classes and the
relevant regimes, who conquer and exploit other lands.

Disregarding the admonishment to love one's neighbor, the Church preached and
organized hatred right from the beginning, especially against Jews, who were labelled
murderers of Jesus Christ. Through the centuries— and especially after the destruction of
the Jewish realm in Palestine—the attempt to force them to convert has been a constant
element of suppression of the Jews. Along with the feudal lords, the Roman Catholic
Church introduced laws that forbade the Jews to own land and to practice certain
professions. The third and fourth Lateran Council (1179 and 1215) forbade Jews to live
with Christians. That was the origin of the institution of the ghetto: The Jews had to live
in separate sections of the city. The Church with its sermons of hate incited the faithful
masses in all Christian states to oppose the Jews; those Jews who declined to be baptized
were evicted from numerous lands; the first mass murders of Jews took place. 7

The Christian churches—the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox—were the main
practitioners of Jewish persecution in the nineteenth

century. Adolf Hitler first met the practitioners of anti-Semitism and of racism (especially
against Serbs and Slovenes) in his homeland Austria. The political climate in Austria was
at that time characterized primarily by the influence of the Catholic Party of Austria
under the leadership of Dr. Lueger and by the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was
considered the strictest Catholic among the European rulers of the twentieth century.
Both propagandized the physical annihilation of both the Jews and the Serbs. 8

One should not forget that the Vatican and Adolf Hitler on July 12, 1933, signed an
imperial concordat. Although the Vatican reserved the claim of moral superiority over all
other nations for itself, it was the first state to give the Hitler regime its blessing.

In actuality, Hitler and the Vatican had a lot in common: anti-Semitism, anti-liberalism,
anti-communism. Later we will see that Hitler and the Vatican pursued common goals in
Yugoslavia in the genocide of Serbs, Slovenes, and Jews.

Compulsory conversions were prevalent especially during the eight crusades in the time
from 1096 to 1270. Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont-Ferrand summonsed the
Christian western and central Europe to "liberate the grave of Jesus in Jerusalem." The
social and economic conditions in the feudal states of Europe, the growing significance of
money in economic relationships, and the increased demands of the ruling nobility drove
the feudal lords to thieving raids outside their own dominions. The popes, themselves
high feudal lords, delivered the religiously grounded justification for this armed assault in
the Middle East at a time when the power of the Islamic caliphs was dwindling. 9

Two centuries of crusades revealed the great ability of the Roman Catholic Church to
influence precisely the poorest levels of the European population as it saw fit.

The popes declared the crusades to be holy wars, a "new path to heaven" (novum salutis
genus), which would lead to the forgiveness of sins (pec-cam inum remisso).

However, the Roman Catholic Church did not always succeed in mobilizing enough
pilgrims and crusaders. In the year 1212 the priests therefore began to preach to the youth
and even to children that they should go to Palestine to free the grave of Jesus and thus
set an example for their elders. Thus tens of thousands of children from all parts of
Europe came to Marseille. The Venetians, who had negotiated with the pope to transport
the children to Palestine, instead brought them to northern Africa and sold them to
sheiks of the land, who took these unfortunate children into their harems. European
historians even unto today have withdrawn

40 INTRODUCTION

from the task of writing the history of this children's crusade.

The crusades left deep memories in the consciousness of the people in Europe as well as
in the Middle East. A new wave of hate had been aroused by the Church, whose
catastrophic consequences are still visible today, not only in Beirut but also in the whole
Middle East.

Already at the time of the crusades, the Roman Catholic Church founded the inquisition—
an "especially holy tribunal for the control and destruction of heretics," as reads the
definition in the Catholic encyclopedia. 10

The inquisition was instigated by Pope Gregory IX, who appointed permanent judges
from the ranks of the Franciscans and the Dominicans (inquisitores dati ab ecclesia) and
who gave them the task of persecuting the heretics and simultaneously forcing the
victims to convert to Catholicism. The history of the inquisition shows that heretics were
burned until the beginning of the nineteenth century, especially in the former Spanish
colonies such as Mexico (1822), for example. 11 Yet today there is no comparative history
of the methods of the inquisition and those totalitarian states of the twentieth century.
Jean-Paul Sartre illustrated, however, that the inquisition was the Church's decisive
instrument of control and that its methods were adopted by all dictatorships, for the
inquisition was instigated not only for the annihilation of heretics but also—and this is of
even greater significance—to convert them (with the words of the church: "to save their
souls and to bring them into the proper faith"). 12

After Jean-Paul Sartre and I had already discussed this topic upon several occasions, in
Bohinj, Florence, and during a trip through Norway, we made the decision to collect
historical documentation about the persecution and murder of heretics. We called this
project Le baiser du mort. This book basically represents an encyclopedia of the heretic
movements.

We were especially interested in the various reactions of the heretics to the persecution.
We distinguished three groups. There were numerous heretics who were killed for their
beliefs and their convictions and whom no clever inquisitor could break. Next to them
were numerous reports about heretics who tried to escape the persecution by disguising
themselves. A third group broke under torture and identified themselves with their
persecutors.

Sartre and I worked for years together on this project. Even after Sartre's death I
continued to collect documents on this subject. But when it became clear that I would not
be able to finish this work in my lifetime, I arranged with Professor Rudolf Rizman for
him to continue the work on this project with several young friends.

Still during Sartre's lifetime, I conducted various seminars at large American universities
(Brandeis, Michigan), among which were seminars on the history of the heretic
movement. I pictured the development since

the Essenes and emphasized the history of the neo-Manichaeans (Albigenses, Patharenes,
Cathars, Bogomiles, etc.) and their annihilation. Every time that Sartre and I met, we
discussed in detail the varying philosophies of this heretic movement. The results of
some of these discussions were published, for example, in Heresy: Ancient and Modern.
13

The historian E. Grekulov determined in his 1930 book Die Geschichte der Heiligen
Inquisition in RuBland that inquisitorial methods were used not only in Catholic
countries against heretics, but were also used by the Protestants in England and in
Calvinist Geneva, where Servetus was burned at the stake. Grekulov names examples of
the use of inquisitorial torture in Russia during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; then some heretics were burned in barricaded cloisters. 14

When one compares the history of compulsory conversions and genocide in Spain at the
end of the fifteenth century on the one hand and in Yugoslavia in the years 1941 to 1945
on the other hand, another important viewpoint emerges. 15 In both cases there were
secret talks between the Roman Catholic Church and the state, in which the Church held
the leading role in the ideological preparation and justification of these mass crimes.

As an organization with significant economic and financial interests, the Roman Catholic
Church pursued its world mission in talks with colonial and imperialistic states. At the
end of the fifteenth century, the development of trade capitalism was beginning, first in
the important Catholic Mediterranean countries of Spain and Portugal. At the same time
the collapse of feudalism was beginning. With the development of the productive powers,
the division of labor as well as the possibilities of distribution and exchange increased.
The bankers of this time, money lenders and profiteers, took up relations with industrial
capital. The trade capital was not yet able to organize production but controlled the
transport of all produced goods. With the growth of the product and money economy, the
importance and the power of the cities increased. The goal of the bourgeoisie was the
creation of national markets and at the same time the establishment of a central state
power, because only through this could the protection of national domestic markets be
guaranteed. The local feudal lords, on the other hand, were opponents of this new form of
state and economics. Merchant capital is the only power that can unify the national
market. Money became the most important means of trade. Therefore a real hunger for
gold arose. The great feudal states entered into competition for the control of the most
important sea routes, which represented the shortest connections between Europe and
distant continents for the transport of gold, spices, and raw materials. Because of the
expansion of the Arab and Turkish empire, the old trade routes in Egypt and the Near
East were not accessible to Euro-

42 INTRODUCTION

pean trade. Therefore, the Atlantic rim states in Europe, who could turn to the discovery
of the compass, the progress in geography, and an improved technology in the
construction of big ships, had the best possibilities of developing the newly arisen
economic form and international trade. At the same time, the European states were
developing their military technology to a high standard, especially by equipping their
sailing vessels with canons, and were thereby far superior to all opposing armies outside
of Europe.

The Bull of Pope Alexander VI to the kings of Spain and Portugal Inter cetera divinae of
1493 reveals quite clearly the trade interests of the leading colonial powers of the world as
well as the character of the apostolic mission of the Roman Catholic Church:

We have learned that you are planning to discover and explore some distant and
unexplored islands and continents in order to convert their inhabitants to the Roman
Catholic faith and to the honor of our redeemer. Since up until now you were occupied
with the struggle for the subjugation and liberation of the kingdom of Granada, you were
formerly not able to accomplish this holy goal as your wishes would have it. Now,
however, since you have conquered the above-mentioned kingdom with God's blessing
and help, you have realized your wish, and have dispatched your beloved son, Christopher
Columbus, a man of high virtue. You have granted him ships and armed soldiers; you
have taken great pains, dangers, and even expenses upon yourselves so that now those
distant and unknown continents and islands can be discovered that lie in waters that until
now no one has been able to penetrate with ships. 16

The Roman Catholic Church in agreements with the Spanish rulers King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella organized the first genocide in modern European history.

Lemkin coined the concept of "genocide" shortly before the outbreak of the Second World
War: a people or an ideological group are exterminated solely because they belong to a
certain nation or religion that is different from that of the murderers. This definition was
taken as a basis at the convention of the United Nations in 1948. It fits perfectly the
genocide that was committed at the end of the fifteenth century in Spain: Jews and Arabs
were sacrificed or expelled for no other reason than their religious belief or their
nationality. They were able to save their lives only if they assumed Christianity. We
should keep in mind that in this genocide at the end of the fifteenth century in Spain the
state and the Roman Catholic Church coordinated their efforts in the destruction of
ethnic and religious aspects of Arabs and Jews. Through pressure from the state and the
terror

of the Church, these Arabs and Jews were to be made into Spaniards.

From then until today there have been numerous cases of compulsory assimilation in
European history. The compulsory conversion of the Serbs to Catholicism and their
Croatianizing in the Second World War is the most obvious example.

In 1492 the Church in Spain declared that all inhabitants of the conquered kingdom of
Granada—Moors and Jews—had to be converted to the Roman Catholic faith "so that
their souls would be saved." If Moors and Jews resisted conversion, they were threatened
with immediate expulsion from Spain. Many Sephardic Jews emigrated from Spain into a
new Diaspora. In many Spanish cities, editions of the Koran and of the Talmud were
burned in great numbers in public squares. The Moors organized numerous rebellions,
which, however, were put down by Spanish troops. King Philipp III issued an edict saying
that all Moors were to be driven out, even those who had transferred from Islam to
Christianity. In all, 300,000 people were driven out. 17

In this regard, it is of great interest to compare the methods of the Spanish inquisition at
the end of the fifteenth century with those of the Vatican and the fascist states in Croatia
between 1941 and 1945, as will be shown in the documents of this book. (See also
Appendix IV.)

In Spain at the end of the fifteenth century and also in Croatia in the twentieth century,
the Vatican used every means to make disappear and even destroy all written historical
documentation that reveals the Vatican's responsibility for the murder of hundreds of
thousands of victims.

What was the historical background for the genocide crimes in Croatia during the Second
World War? In this collection we have published numerous documents for this important
historical question. We are of the opinion that among the Vatican, Hitler, Mussolini, and
Pavelic there was a secret agreement.

Together with Professor Andrej Mitrovic, we have worked on a scientific investigation of


the historical bases for the genocide by the Germans in the Second World War.

The significance of Ante Pavelic and right-wing circles of the ruling class in Croatia for the
rise of the genocide of Serbs is evident from the documents of this collection.

As in numerous other parts of the world, the Roman Catholic Church made the Balkan
states, too, their missionary province and with all means at their disposal carried out
conversions there. Long before there was a state there, the Vatican attempted to bring the
Balkan into its sphere of influence. The Franciscan order, which had already
distinguished itself in

44 INTRODUCTION

its papal mission in Latin America, China, and Japan, undertook great efforts in Bosnia
and in Hercegovina to convert the Manichean sect of the Bogomiles. 18

One of the methods that the Vatican used to convert numerous Orthodox members to
Catholicism in eastern Europe and in the Balkan was the creation of the so-called "United
Church." This church was founded officially already at the Council of Brest (1596). The
decisive factor for the accession of this "United Church" was the subjugation of the
relevant Orthodox churches to the Vatican. They had to declare their allegiance to the
pope publicly and received permission to read the mass in their own Slavic languages and
to retain their traditional church rituals.

Already since the beginning of the thirteenth century the Vatican made secret agreements
with the relevant state heads to force the non-Catholic population of the Balkan into
Catholicism. In the thirteenth century the popes collaborated with the Hungarian kings
and the Venetian doges, later with the Austrian emperors and in the twentieth century
with Austro-Hungary and Hitler's Germany.

The great historian J. Sidak has described how the Vatican, with the help of Hungary and
Venice, organized crusades against the Bosnian heretics:

In their centuries-long efforts to eradicate the heresy in Bosnia, the Roman Catholic
Church also conducted crusades against the heretics there. After the failed attempts of
1203 to convert the Bosnian heretics to Catholicism peacefully, Pope Honorius III in the
year 1221 summonsed his legate Acon-tius and the Hungarian episcopate to apply all
means to achieve this goal. Although he did not explicitly mention the "sign of the cross"
upon this occasion, he nevertheless admonished the Catholic archbishop—who was
willing to carry out this summons—to preach the crusade and the power authorities, who
were willing, to carry the sign of the cross under punishment of excommunication. At that
time he even guaranteed him ecclesiastical rights to Bosnia, Sol, and Usora, which
Andreas II, in the framework of this crusade, was to subjugate to his worldly power. This
plan for a first crusade in Bosnia perished, however. Not until the year 1234 was Pope
Gregory IX successful in giving a character of a crusade to the campaign of the Slav Duke
Koloman against Bosnia. He granted absolution to him and his cohorts, gave them
various privileges, and placed them under his papal protection as if they were fighting for
the liberation of the Holy Land. In actuality, Koloman subjugated Bosnia in 1238 and
apparently eliminated the heresy with the aid of the Hungarian Dominicans who also
proceeded with burnings against the heretics there. Kolomon assured Catholicism
through the reorganization of the Bosnian bishopric following the pattern of the western
church. Even this decisive event, in which the political interests of the Hungarian court
and the goals of the Roman Curia were intimately woven,

did not, however, lead to any sort of permanent results in the sense of the conquerors.
The Catholic bishop even saw himself soon forced to withdraw to Slavonic Dakovo for
good.

Furthermore, the Roman Curia also paid special attention to the "Bosnian Heresy" and
from the end of the thirteenth century increasingly deployed the Franciscan order into
battle against them. Although the Hungarian court attacked Bosnia several times still and
justified this as a battle against heresy, Rome did not give these campaigns anything more
than the stamp of a crusade. This happened only one more time, in the year 1407, when
Gregory XII rallied an army for a crusade against Turks, Arians, Manicheans (i.e., Bosnia
heretics) and other heathens in various countries in order to support King Zigmund. He
granted absolution to the participants in this crusade, the same as the pilgrims to the
Holy Land received it in those times. Zigmund in 1408 indeed did crush the rebellion in
Bosnia supported by crusade knights from various lands, especially Poland; but there
were still no deep changes. This common action of the Hungarian court and the Roman
Curia had only the lasting result of making further advances easier for the Turks. 19

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Vatican stood in close relationship with the
Catholic party in Vienna, whose leader was Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The followers of
this party demanded the physical annihilation of Serbs and Jews. In this regard, I would
like to quote a passage from my book Sarajevo 1914, in which I have processed numerous
documents:

Whenever ecclesiastical institutions have appeared directly in politics, it has happened


under the slogan of the "defense of sacred Christian values." Since the French revolution,
the Catholic Church has fought especially against liberalism and rationalism. The
significance of the fact that the Catholic Church in Italy as well as in Austro-Hungary has
pursued important economic interests, especially wherever the possession of land is
concerned, should not be underestimated. As Salvemini charged, the Vatican suffered
great financial losses when it tried to convert a part of its feudalistic agrarian economy
into a commercial-capitalistic basis, because a sharp competition existed with the
capitalists, who advocated a policy of laissez-faire and the principles of liberalism. The
fact that there were some Jews among the capitalists served the Vatican in the eighties as
an excuse for the reviving of anti-Semitism. The old religious anti-Semitism combined
with the new economic and political anti-Semitism. Theories appeared saying that "evil"
forces from outside, especially "Jews, Freemasons, and Protestants," had set the French
Revolution into motion. The idea of equality was denounced as the product of a Jewish
conspiracy. The Jews were accused of striving for status equal to all other people and
under the pretense of equality wanting to achieve dominion of the world. This new form
of Catholic anti-Semitism was promulgated under

46 INTRODUCTION

the rule of Pope Leo XIII. The major bearer of this policy was the order of the Jesuits,
who deployed its journal Civita Cattolica as a propaganda instrument in the battle against
the Jews.

Numerous law-oriented Austrian aristocrats, pressured by the rising bourgeoisie


welcomed this new Vatican policy. But if one expected this new course to bear fruit, then
one, at least partially, had to find the support of the masses. One had to see to it that the
latent anti-Semitism would be revived. After the announcement of the Enzyklika Rerum
Novarum of Leo XIII, the Catholic Party was founded in Austria. Its unusually dynamic
leader was Dr. Karl Lueger.

A part of the Austrian ruling circle pursued the activities of Dr. Lueger with suspicion. His
efforts to involve the bourgeoisie in political life disturbed them. They were not anti-
Semites—in actuality there were some Jewish bankers among them who played a decisive
role in the financial affairs of the court. Emperor Franz Josef did not agree with the strict
economic and political anti-Semitism of Lueger and refused several times to give his
support for Lueger's election to the position of mayor of Vienna.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the representatives of the aristocracy who were
committed to battle, on the other hand, supported Dr. Lueger. From a comment by
Lisling, it is deduced that Dr. Lueger was a prominent political personality in the eyes of
the archduke. Franz Ferdinand after 1890 was in personal contact with Lueger and
planned to appoint him some day to prime minister.

Dr Lueger, along with Georg von Schonerer, an Austrian politician, was one of the
founders of modern anti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century. It is generally
understood that Dr. Lueger's anti-Semitism was more religious and economic, while that
of Schonerer, on the other hand, was mainly racist. But it is difficult to distinguish
between these two forms of anti-Semitism.

Dr. Lueger made no secret of the fact that anti-Semitism served him only as a tactical
instrument in politics. He scorned especially Jewish intellectuals but as Vienna's mayor,
he at the same time cooperated with leading Viennese bankers, among whom Jewish
families such as the Rothschilds were influential. Alexander Spitzmuller, chair of the
credit institution, asked Dr. Lueger about the logic of his anti-Semitism. He expressed his
astonishment about the fact that Lueger, in spite of his anti-Semitic attitude, was
cooperating so successfully with Jews in public offices. The mayor answered with
astonishing frankness: "Anti-Semitism is an excellent means of political agitation to
achieve a certain goal; but once you have achieved it, it becomes superfluous. Otherwise
anti-Semitism is something for dummies."

The speeches of Dr Lueger and his adherents as well as the documentation for the
introduction of anti-Jewish laws are, however, not characterized only by religiously and
economically motivated anti-Semitism but rather also by racism; they even contain
demands for the eradication of Jews. In the year 1889 Dr. Lueger declared: Only "the fat
Jews" could survive the "murderous

free competition in the economy. The Christian world must be protected from the
insatiable capitalism. Anti-Semitism is no explosion of brutality but rather a cry of the
suppressed Christian people for the help of the Church and the state." In an address
before the parliament in 1890, he accused the Jews of unquenchable greed for revenge on
all those who remembered their deeds; he compared them to wolves and lions and
accused them of not being able to escape their past. At the end of his speech, he suggested
—without any objection from those present—the use of the "medication" that his friend
Ernst Schneider had prescribed for the solution of the "Jewish problem." Ernst Schneider,
one of the most adamant anti-Semites, had expressed the desire that all Jews board a big
ship and it sink during a severe storm on the high seas along with every man and mouse.
This, in his opinion, would be a great burden removed from humanity.

In 1896, as Dr. Lueger again was elected mayor of Vienna, his followers greeted him as is
noted in the city annals as "our messiah." In the address with which he thanked the city
for his re-election, he attacked the Hungarian regime intensely and declared that the most
important goal of his policy was the liberation of Catholics from Jewish suppression and
the realization of Austrian independence. His party colleague Gregorig made the proposal
that Jews, whether they were baptized or not, be excluded from citizen rights. He added
that the Jews were the root of all social evil and there was no possibility to protect the
general populace from Jewish aggression other than by confiscating Jewish property. As
long as this could not be done on a legal basis, one could keep these infamous individuals
in check only with a whip. Schneider supported this proposal with the comment that in
human society only humans could enjoy citizen rights: "I cannot grant Jews the right to
be considered humans, and I think we should punish every relationship between humans
and Jews as an inappropriate act against nature."
In a later speech in 1901 Schneider declared: "The Jewish question is, as history teaches, a
question of race, a question of blood and steel, and this fact cannot be ignored. I would
not want to get involved in any discussion about the baptism of Jews; but I will say: If I
had to baptize Jews, I would improve on the method of John the Baptist. At a baptism he
dipped them in water only briefly; but I would submerge them for five minutes."

As far as the ideology as well as the concrete measures of persecution are concerned, the
anti-Semitism of the German National Socialists was greatly influenced by the Austrian
anti-Semitism shaped by Dr. Lueger and Georg von Schonerer.

As we will see later, occasioned by the mobilization of Austro-Hungary, conflicts arose


between the archduke and certain banks that were under the influence of Jewish financial
circles. He tried to favor banks with which he had personal relationships.

Anti-Semitism strengthened the anti-Hungarian policy of the archduke since Jews played
an important role in the political and cultural life of Hungary. Franz Ferdinand was not
able to get over the fact that the Hungarian

48 INTRODUCTION

parliament in 1894 passed a law making civilian marriage obligatory and that in Hungary
state registration was introduced that made marriages between Christians and Jews
possible. Under the influence of the archduke, Dr. Lueger began to launch a propaganda
campaign against "Judeo Magyarism." Dr. Lueger was an opponent of the pact of 1867,
through which, as he said, "Austria has been subjugated to the Hungarian state.** At the
time of the crisis with Hungary in 1906, Vienna saw a demonstration of 15,000 followers
of Dr. Lueger, which the annual register characterized as "Anti-Semites." Dr. Lueger held
a speech on this occasion in which he ranted against "Judeo Magyarism." He ended it
with the cry: "Separation from Hungary!"

Puntigam, a Catholic propagandist from Bosnia and loyal to the Austrian crown, was
frequently a personal guest of the archduke in Konopiste and in the Belvedere. Colonel
Bardolf was commanded to apply to the director of the regional bank, Count Montecucoli,
in order to get a credit of 50,000 Kronen for Puntigam. On the twentieth of March, 1914,
Puntigam wrote the archduke that he hoped that the cornerstone of the planned youth
home could be laid on the twenty-eighth of June, 1914:

"The news has just appeared in the papers that Your Imperial Majesty intends to visit
Bosnia with Her Highness in July. Your visit will encounter great enthusiasm in Bosnia,
where a love for Austria is not made easy for the people. All hopes of the population,
especially of the part that is Catholic and loyally dedicated to the emperor, are on you
personally. How nice it would be if by then the cornerstone of the youth home could be
laid. With deep feeling of submission, the truest servant of Your Imperial Majesty, signed
Anton Puntigam."
Puntigam was known for measures that were to thwart any liberal and socialist influence
on the youth. He had promoted himself in 1906 on the occasion of the general strike in
Sarajevo by sermons in the cathedral there, in which he scolded socialists as atheists and
as enemies of the state and the Emperor. He had emphasized that no Catholic be
permitted to join socialism. Puntigam continued his propagandistic activity until 1914.

After General Potjorek had been appointed the head of the government in Bosnia and
Hercegovina, the military became increasingly involved in actions to spread Catholicism
in Bosnia. In a letter to the military chancelry of Archduke Ferdinand on 3 March 1913,
Potjorek suggested that the state furnish means of constructing fifty Catholic churches in
Bosnia and Hercegovina: one Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia and Hercegovina must be
helped quickly and generously, for it is not just a matter of religious interest but rather
political and dynasty interests also." Potjorek asked Bardolf to act as go-between with the
archduke so that the aid would be granted as quickly as possible. He gave the advice to
ask Pater Galen and his "Boniface Union" to assist in the acquisition of credit in Austria.
In a second letter he offered further incitement: "One should support the Catholics in
Bosnia and Hercegovina in the construction of churches. Up until now, it has been
primarily the Bosnian Franciscans who have helped in this task; but the

cloisters are not so rich that they can accomplish this alone. In Bosnia and Hercegovina
approximately fifty churches have to be built. Of greatest importance is the construction
of a new church in Sarajevo and a cathedral in Mostar."

General Potjorek expressed his agreement with a memorandum from Dr. Peter Bastijer,
member of the order "Society of St. Boniface," in which it is stated: "The aid for the
Catholics in Bosnia and Hercegovina is of equal interest to the church and to the
monarchy. Whoever acts for the Church in this land also acts for the benefit of the
monarchy."

Bastijer made it clear that the main goal had to be the founding of Catholic educational
institutions and the systematic promotion of a Catholic intelligence in Bosnia and
Hercegovina: "By giving the youth a Catholic education, the foundation will be laid for the
future." Furthermore, since the Orthodox Church and the religious institutions of the
Moslems in his opinion had greater financial means, he suggested that the aid program
for the Catholic Church be conducted through an esteemed body headed by Archduke
Franz Ferdinand.

Potjorek's policy was the practical translation of the ideas of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
regarding the conversion of the southern Slavs. The position of the archduke regarding
the Serbs was especially determined by dynastic and religious viewpoints. When Margutti
questioned the archduke about his view on the differences between the Catholic Croats
and Slovenes and the Orthodox Serbs, the answer was: "Of course the Catholics must
have dominion." In a note from Kristofi we read that the archduke "wishes that the
spread of Orthodoxy be prevented by having as many Serbs as possible convert to
Catholicism."

In another comment, the archduke described the method that one should use, in his
opinion, regarding the non-Catholics in Bosnia and Hercegovina: "To begin with, we
should put all of them (Orthodox, Moslem, and Catholic) in a great big kettle and then let
them pop up again as Catholics." 20

When one analyzes the historical process up to the ultimate decision by Hitler, Mussolini,
and the Vatican to destroy Yugoslavia in 1941 and notes the diplomatic decisions
regarding this secret agreement, one should not underestimate in this regard the
significance of the concordat between Pope Pius XI and Hitler of 20 July 1933. The
Vatican granted the Nazi regime of Hitler, first above all other European countries, great
moral support. In the thirties and forties of this century, it pursued very cleverly a multi-
track policy. The Vatican entertained close relationships with conservative forces in the
USA, in France, and to a certain degree even in Great Britain. At the same time, the
Vatican was urging a crusade against the Soviet Union and supported clerical-fascist
parties throughout the world.

It is true that up until today there has been no final historical resolution concerning
whose influence was decisive in Franco's usurping of power

50 INTRODUCTION

in Spain—the Vatican's or Hitler's and Mussolini's. But there is, however, convincing
historical evidence that the Vatican played the decisive role.

Slovakia after 1939 was another land in which Hitler and the Vatican had close
cooperation. As the documents in this book show, Nazi Germany and the Vatican, with
Mussolini's support, are equally responsible for the genocide in Croatia during the last
world war.

The Vatican reacts today extremely sensitively when the concordat of 1933 is mentioned.
In recent years, we have been obligated to note, for example, how the Church in the
Federal Republic of Germany addressing Paragraph 166 of the West German penal code
has started proceedings against citizens solely because they insist that the truth about the
historical cooperation between the Vatican and Nazi Germany be made public.

I was first made aware of the systematic prosecution of Church opponents by the Bunte
Liste Freiburg, a radical-democratic and atheist organization, which asked me for my
support in the fall of 1985.

Four co-workers of the Buste Liste were charged under §166 because they had published
an anti-clerical caricature on a poster advertising an event. It showed a grinning priest
with a raised hand holding God as a puppet. One of the main charges was that on the lapel
of the priest there was a label with the inscription "Concordat 1933." In the decision of the
district court in Freiburg on 3 June 1985 (Document II Qs 117/85), with which the suit
against the Bunte Liste was opened, this was established as follows: "Additionally, the
Catholic church has been slandered again in an especially injurious manner. This is
obvious from the evidence that the inscription 'Concordat 1933' in the depiction connects
the Vatican with Hitler fascism. ..." The act of bringing into the public consciousness the
incontestable historical fact that the Vatican in 1933 with this concordat was the first
state in the world to recognize the Nazis is to be prevented by means of criminal
prosecution.

This suit is by far not the only case; numerous other critical activist citizens have been
prosecuted because they had cited the facts of Church history and had drawn conclusions
from them. Information about these suits, by the way, has been almost completely
suppressed by the West German media; the largest daily newspaper in the Federal
Republic, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, refused to print a paid advertisement (!) consisting of
an appeal from me and the Bunte Liste to internationally respected individuals for the
repeal of §166. Under these conditions it was possible only through a broad solidarity
campaign abroad to get a dismissal of charges in some cases, among which was the suit
against the Bunte Liste. But the situation still remains extremely disturbing.

Long before the attack on Yugoslavia actually took place, the Vatican was prepared. With
the military destruction of Yugoslavia, it saw a splendid opportunity to convert
compulsorily the Orthodox population in the Serbian areas and thereby realize a
thousand-year-old wish of Vatican foreign policy.

In this collection we document how the Vatican already before the war prepared the
justification of the genocide. Franciscan theology students were encouraged to write
dissertations in which the claim was made that the Orthodox Serbs had been Roman
Catholic centuries ago and that therefore the compulsory conversion of the Serbs had to
be undertaken as a return to their former nationality and religion.

From Ustasha documents that were published after the German troops had occupied
Zagreb on 10 April 1941 and the collaborator state of Croatia had been established, it is
clear that the Vatican had given the Catholic Church of Croatia the assignment of
supporting the fascist Ustashe in the construction of their secret organization.

In an article that appeared on 3 July 1941 in Ustasha Nr. 3 on page 4 under the headline
"The first Ustasha Troop," it was reported that the ecclesiastical chancellery on Capitol Nr.
4 was the place that served the first members of the Ustasha movement—Marko
Hranilovic, Matija Soldin, Mijo Babic, and Zvonko Pospisil—as an organizational meeting
place. These first Ustashe had all already at the time of the old Yugoslavia instigated the
formation of their movement and had carried out terrorist attacks.

In this article is the following depiction:


The above-mentioned four Ustashe worked undercover and unnoticed by the public and
prepared very carefully for the difficult battle. The historical "catacombs" of the building
on Capitol Nr. 4 were witness later to nocturnal meetings of a small group of people, the
first active Ustashe, who after their day jobs in the workshops came there to hold
discussions and prepare everything for the battle, which was known by no one in Croatia,
and which was nevertheless to occur soon.

The Ustashe erected a plate as a memorial to this Church chancellery, which was
maintained until the liberation.

The article confirmed that in the chancellery even Field Marshall Slavko Kvaternik had
met with Mirko Puk, one of the most notorious Ustashe. The latter was personally
responsible for the horrible blood bath in the church of Glina, at which nine hundred
Serbs were slaughtered; in Glina and in the vicinity up to the end of 1941, eight thousand
people were killed.

Several Franciscan cloisters served as organizational and educational centers for the
Ustasha criminals. An important role was played by the Franciscan cloister and the
adjoining school in Siroki Brijeg, about which

52 INTRODUCTION

there was an article under the headline "The struggle of the Ustashe in Siroki Brijeg" in
Hvratski narod on 4 June 1941 in edition Nr. 110, page 13. There among other information
is stated:

. . . after the deal of Macek-Cvetkovic in 1939, a struggle for life and death began. At that
time the young and energetic Franciscan Dr. Radoslav Glavas came to Siroki Brijeg and
began to conduct this struggle systematically. In the beginning he was supported only by
the middle-school attenders Vlado Mandic, Lyubo Stojcic, Pavao Klajo, and Drago Putica
and by the old Ustasha warrior Ivan Zovko, a farmer from Lis. The struggle was difficult,
since the local authorities were informed about the plans of the youth. In the summer of
1940, new comrades joined them, Ante and Ilija Saravanja, Milenko Dzato, Josip Stojcic,
Mato Penavic, Karlo Susak, and Petar Bubalo, academicians already known in Zagreb.

This cloister also played in infamous role later at the time of the Ustasha rule in
Hercegovina; in the adjoining Franciscan school, the Ustasha ideology was spread among
the youth.

Dr. Radoslav Glavas, Franciscan and member of the Ustashe, became one of the most
prominent Ustasha priests during the occupation.

Well known is also the pastor and honorary canon in Ogulin, Ivan Mikan, the cofounder
of the Ustasha organization.
Nova Hrvatska published in Nr. 128 on 1 June 1943 on page 6 upon the occasion of
Mikan's death an article with the headline: "The death of the iron Croat, Honorary Canon
Ivan Mikan."

Document Nr. 12796 of the State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the
Occupiers and their Helpers contains an entry by Father Dr. Berkovic, pastor in Drnis, on
10 November 1941 directed to the Ministry for Agriculture of the NDH, in which he
reported:

For 14 years of my activity as pastor in Drnis, my parsonage was a regular Ustasha


quarters. Here was the meeting place not only of the local Ustashe but also of those who
came from outside in order to organize the Ustasha movement here. From here Ustasha
pamphlets were distributed. Before the overthrow and revolution, I was the chair of the
Ustasha organization in Drnis.

We cannot here list all members of the Catholic clergy individually who long before the
usurping of power worked actively through the Ustashe on the organization of the
Ustasha movement. But we will see later that the named examples in no way represent
exceptions but that a remarkably large number of Catholic parsonages and cloisters
throughout the country took part in the organization of the Ustasha conspiracy and were
the breeding places of fascist propaganda. 21

In this collection we are publishing documents that testify to the fact that the highest
dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church gave their blessing to Ante Pavelic at a time
when the so-called independent state of Croatia was proclaimed, i.e., at a time when the
Yugoslav state and its army still existed.

Roman Catholic priests and monks organized mercenary troops that attacked the
Yugoslav army units while the latter were also severely pressured by Hitler's divisions.
Throughout the whole war in more than 150 newspapers and magazines, the church
justified the fascist state under Pavelic as the work of God.

Many Roman Catholic priests served the Ustasha state in high positions. The pope
appointed the highest military vicar for Croatia. The latter had a field chaplain in every
unit of the Ustasha army. The task of this field chaplain consisted among other things of
repeatedly goading the Ustasha units in their mass murders of the peasant population.
High dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Ustasha state together
organized the mass conversion of the Orthodox Serbian population. Hundreds of
Orthodox churches in Serbia were plundered and destroyed; the three highest dignitaries
and two hundred clerics were murdered in cold blood; the remainder of the clergy were
driven into exile. In the concentration camp of Jasenovac, hundreds of thousands of Serbs
were murdered under the command of Roman Catholic priests.

The papal emissary Marcone was in Croatia during this entire time. He sanctioned
silently all the gory deeds and permitted pictures of himself with Pavelic and the German
commanders to be published in the newspapers. After the visit to Pope Pius XII, Ante
Pavelic exchanged Christmas and New Year's greetings with him that were published in
the Ustasha press.

In mid-year 1986 the government of the United States released documents of their
counter-espionage agency. These reveal that the Vatican had organized a safe-flight route
from Europe to Argentina for Pavelic and two hundred of his advisors known by name.
The fascists hid frequently during their flight in cloisters and in many instances disguised
themselves as Franciscan monks.

Ante Pavelic was a man of great piety. In his palace in Zagreb he had a chapel built; he
had two confessors. Shortly before his death in Madrid in 1959, Pope John XXIII granted
him his special blessing; on his death bed, Pavelic held a wreath that was a personal gift
from Pope Pius XII from the year 1941. 22

In the preparations for this collection of documents, I have tried to collect as many
eyewitness accounts of victims of the genocide crimes in the last war as possible.

54 INTRODUCTION

The victims who survived the hell of Jasenovac report of their sufferings, horror, and
fears; they testify to the tortures and murders of thousands of their fellow camp inmates
who cannot testify for themselves.

Already during the war, some eyewitnesses who had fled from Croatia and Bosnia to
Belgrade wrote down their horrifying experiences. As I already mentioned, Mose Pijade,
member of the high command of the partisans, had begun to gather documents about the
genocide. Immediately after the end of the war, the National Commission for
Determining Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers published a collection of
documents about Jasenovac under the title Crimes in the Concentration Camp Jasenovac.
Recently Anton Miletic published numerous new documents about the concentration
camp of Jasenovac in a three-volume work.

The second important source is the documents of the German army and of the German
Reich as well as Italian documents and documents of the Ustasha government and
Hungary. Unfortunately most of these documents were destroyed, but those that were
preserved before the destruction represent important pieces of proof of the genocide.
Many of the preserved Ustasha reports, however, have not yet been sorted in the past
forty years, so that they are of no direct use to the present-day historian. But there are
still numerous documents of German and Italian origin. Thus, for example, Jasenovac
and all other concentration camps stood directly under the control of the Gestapo and the
German military defense. These important documents, which are in the USA, the USSR,
and the FRG [Germany] are not available to scientific research. The Italian government
also holds yet today various archives under lock and key, among which is the archive of
their highest secret service (Ovra).

For this reason, I have tried to use all other historical sources at my disposal. Thus I have
also extracted documents from the official biography of the Vatican on Cardinal Stepinac,
Alojzije Stepinac, Croatian Cardinal, written by O. Aleksa Benigar and published by ZIRAL
(Society "Wounded Swan") in 1974 in Rome.

How many people were killed in Jasenovac?

In order to examine methods for the statistical assessment of people killed in the war, a
symposium of the genocide committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts took
place on 20 and 21 June 1985. The first method is to compare the results of censuses
before and after a war and from this to estimate the losses. This method is surely
appropriate when dealing with a nation in its entirety; but we have to find out how many
people were murdered in the concentration camp at Jasenovac. Here there are three
methods of procedure:

1. determine the number of victims from the documents of the camp itself and from the
reports sent to Germany and to the main Ustasha authorities,

2. consult the eyewitness accounts of the survivors,

3. consider investigations resulting from the discovery of bodies in the camp.

Professor Nikola Nikolic, a survivor of the concentration camp at Jasenovac, wrote a


comprehensive report on the methods of execution practiced there, excerpts of which we
are publishing in this book. He described more than 50 of the methods used by the
slaughterers. Many thousands were killed in cold blood and then thrown into the Save,
which carried the bodies down river to Belgrade and even into the Danube. Because of
this, our calculation of the number of dead was made difficult. In addition, thousands of
prisoners were thrown into incinerating ovens.

Most of the dead, however, were buried in one huge mass grave, the Gradina Ravine. In
1961 veterans organizations from Dubica, Bosnia, entrusted a group of archaeologists,
court doctors, and anthropologists with the exhumation of Gradina. The work
unfortunately had to be interrupted when only one-tenth of the graves had been opened;
just up to this point, the investigators had found over 58,000 skulls crushed by wooden
mallets. Still today, when the Save water level is low, new mass graves are discovered.

When I visited Jasenovac in 1985 with other members of the Genocide Committee of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences, we saw one of these mass graves that was opened by the
current of the Save; it was more than 150 meters long.

Among the most important sources of our research are the photographs and films made
by the Ustasha authorities during the war and fortunately preserved. I have examined
these photos and films carefully and consider them to be thoroughly convincing
documents. From the whole period of the war, photos have been found that show the
papal legate in Croatia, Marcone, together with Pavelic, e.g., leaving the cathedral in
Zagreb together while a group of youth give them the fascist salute. Another photo shows
Roman Catholic priests at the baptism of Orthodox Serbs.

We also discovered photos of the Roman Catholic priests who were among the most
important commanders and henchmen in the Ustasha concentration camps. Another
picture from the year 1944 shows Pavelic surrounded by eighteen Franciscan monks.
Under the headline "Rome: Croatian military police visit the Holy Father. Pius XII grants
a special audience to Croatian military police upon the occasion of their training in Italy,"
Hrvatski Narod, the most important press organ of the Ustasha state, in an edition from 5
September 1943, published the following report:

56 INTRODUCTION

On Thursday afternoon, Pope Pius XII in a special audience received 110 Croatian military
policemen who were in Italy for training. They were accompanied by Monsignore
Madjerac, the director of the St. Hieronimus Institute in Rome, and by four Croatian
officers. The Holy Father conversed for some time with the Croatian military police,
greeted each of them personally and inquired about their work in Italy. The pope
explained that he knew Ante Pavelic. Upon leaving, the Holy Father gave each military
policeman an appropriate gift and imparted to each individually his papal blessing.

Of these 110 military policemen, several served in the concentration camp Jasenovac.

In their retreat from Zagreb at the beginning of May 1945, the Ustasha and the Germans
turned over to Archbishop Stepinac the major part of their archive material and the gold
stolen by them. Both were found again later. I received several photos of this horde,
which for the most part consisted of the gold teeth of thousands of victims of Jasenovac.

In order to reconstruct the history of the concentration camp at Jasenovac, one can refer
to the reports of the surviving prisoners and the available documentation of the Germans,
the Italians, and the Ustasha regime.

Documents of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic church in Croatia, on the other
hand, are hardly available. The complete archive of the foreign ministry of the Ustasha
regime has been found, which had been hidden in the Capitol, the central headquarters of
the Catholic Church of Croatia. It contains many documents that reveal the character of
the relationships between the Vatican and the Ustasha regime of Ante Pavelic. The
archives of the Vatican, however, are as yet unavailable. We are publishing in this
collection documents that were released only recently by the American secret service and
which prove how the Vatican after the war helped Pavelic and hundreds of his most
important followers flee to Argentina. When American journalists asked the official
speaker for the Vatican for an opinion on these reports, he would give no comment at all.

Just as the Vatican still keeps documents from the time of the inquisition under lock and
key, it also does not release documents about the compulsory conversion of the Orthodox
Serbs and the genocide in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1945.

Together with one of the leading members of the Russell Tribunal, I sent the following
letter to the pope on 9 September 1986:

Concerning these crimes, we are in possession of a very comprehensive documentation


composed of documents of the Germans, of the Ustashe, and of eyewitness reports of the
victims. We, however, have no documents from the Vatican. It would be very useful for
uncovering the truth if you

would open your archives, which we herewith ask you. For our part, we are prepared to
present our documentation through a small commission and would like to ask you to
assemble a corresponding committee from the Vatican that would present your
documents. In this manner, both collections of documents could be compared and
studied.

Any regime that fears the truth will do its best to suppress documents. The Vatican has
here a good opportunity to prove that its position regarding truth is different. The Church
has always taught that "grace and truth were given to the world by Jesus Christ" (John
1,17). If the Vatican should here follow the example of secular states, it would be a grave
assault on the principles proclaimed by the Vatican itself.

Notes

1. Vladimir Dedijer, War Diary, pp. 24244.

2. Vladimir Dedijer, op. cit., pp. 252-55.

3. Vladimir Dedijer, op. cit., p. 371.

4. Vladimir Dedijer, "Literature and History in the Totality of Historical Process" (reprint
of individual issues of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, vol. DV; Section on
Language and Literature, vol. 30; collection of writings on Ivo Andric), Belgrade, 1979.

5. Wetzer und Welte's Kirchenlexikon, Freiburg, 1897 (reprint), vol. X, p. 474.

6. Malaja Sovetskaja Enciklopedija (M.S.E.), vol. IV (1936), p. 754.

7. H. Reinch, Texts d'auteurs Grecs et Romains relatifs au judaisme (1895); I. Juster, Les
juifs dans I empire Romain (1917); J. P. Sartre, Antisemite and Jew (1948); A. L. Williams,
Adversus judaeos, England (1935); B. Lazare, Anti-semitism. Its history and causes
(1903); J. Maritain, A Christian looks at the Jewish question (1939); H. Arendt, The
Origin of Totalitarianism (1955); A. Steiger, Der neudeutsche Heide in Kampfe gegen
Christen und Juden (1924); A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925); A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel
among the Nations (1895).

8. Vladimir Dedijer, Sarajevo 1914, vol. I, Belgrad, 1978 (second edition), 12; R. Roricht,
Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs (1901).

9. R. Roricht, Geschichte des Konigreiches Jerusalem (1898); R. Roricht, Geschichte der


Kreuzziige in Umriss (1898); A. Luchaire, Innocent III — La question d'orient (1907); B.
Kugler, Geschichte der Kreuzziige (1880); S. Grayzel, The church and the Jews in the 13th
century (1933); S. D. Toitein, Mikhtavim me-erez yisrael mi-tekupat ha-zalbahim.
Heubauer Stern, Hebraeische Berichte uber die Judenverfolgung wdhrend der Kreuzziige
(1892); M. Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land (1970); F. Uspenskii, Istorija
krestovoix pohodov (1901); P. Matkovic, Putovanja po balkanskom polvotoku za srednjeg
vieka (1878); P. Skok, Tri starofrancuske horike o zadru (1202); S. A. Runciman, A History
of the Crusades (1951-54); H. A. Zaborov, Krestovnie pohodnji (1956), 13; Encyclopaedia
cattolica, Citta de Vaticano, Nihil obstat, Romae, 29 July 1951. Dominicus Mondrone et
Henricus Baragli, Revisores Delegati.—Imprimatur ex vicariatu urbis, die 4. Augusti 1951,
+ Aloisius Traglia, Arciop. us Caesarien, Vicesgerons.

10. Encyclopaedia Cattolica, Citta del Vaticano, Nihil Obstat, Rome (1951).

11. Ph. Limborch, Historia inquisitionis, Amsterdam (1692); P. Fredericq, Corpus


documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis neerlandicae (1889); B. Guidonis,
Practica inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis (1886); H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition
of the Middle

58 INTRODUCTION

Ages (1887); A. S. Turberville, Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition, London (1920); J.
Havet, L'heresie et le bras seculier au moyen age jusqu'au XIIIe siecle, in: Oeuvres
completes (1881); C. Domais, L'inquisition (1906); Ch. V. Longlois, L'inquisition d'apres
des travaux recents (1902).

12. Vladimir Dedijer, Diary: Kiss of Death (unpublished).

13. Essays on Socialist Humanism in Honour of the Centenary of Bertrand Russell. 1872-
1970, ch. X, in: Vladimir Dedijer and Jean Paul Sartre, Heresy. Ancient and Modern, pp.
147-58, Spokesman Books (1972).

14. M.S.E., vol. IV, p. 754.

15. H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of Spain (1905-1908); E. N. Adler, Autodefe and
Jew (1908); B. Ilorca, La inquisicion en Espana (1946); B. Lewin, La inquisicion en
hispanoamerica (1962); S. Lozinski, Svjataja inkvizicija (1927); E. Grekulof, Iz istoria
svjatoj inkvizicij y rossij (1929).

16. Vladimir Dedijer, Interesne sfere, pp. 48-49.

17. Vladimir Dedijer, op. cit., pp. 52-54.

18. Bullarium Franciscanum, vol. I-IV, H. Sbaralea, B. de Rossi (ed.), Rome, 1759-68; vol.
V-VII, K. Eubel (ed.), Rome (1898-1904); vol. VIII (new series: vol. I), U. Hiintemann
(ed.), Quaracchi (1929); vol IX-X (new series: vol. II-III), J. Pou y Marti (ed.), Quaracchi
(1939-40); Suppl. vol. I, F. Annibali de Latera (ed.), Rome (1780); Suppl. II, K. Eubel (ed.),
Quaracchi (1908); Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum vel ad Ordinem quoquomodo
pertinentia, vol. I-V, Rome (1882-86); vol. VI ff., Quaracchi (1887 ff.); L. Wadding,
Annates Ordinis Minorum (8 vol.), Lyons (1625-54); continued by J. M. Fonseca et al. (25
vol.), Rome (1731-1886), second printing; continued by A. Chiappini et al. (30 vol.),
Quaracchi (1931 ff.), third printing; Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, T. Ripoll,
A. Bremond (ed.), (8 vol.), Rome (1729-49); Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum
Historica, B. M. Reichert (ed.), (14 vol.), Rome (1896-1904); continued, Paris (1931 ff.); K.
Eubel, Die avignonesische Obedienz der Mendikanten-Orden sowie der Order der
Mercedarier und Trinitarier zur Zeit des Grolkn Schismas. Beleuchtet durch die von
Clemens VII. und Benedikt XIII. an dieselben gerichteten Schreiben. Quellen und
Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte, Paderborn (1900), published by the Gorres
Gesellschaft; K. Hallinger, Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, cur a Pont. AthenaeiS.
Anselmide Urbeeditum, ca. 25 volumes planned, of which 3 have been published,
Siegburg (1963-67); H. Holzapfel, Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens,
Freiburg (1909); R. M. Huber, A Documented History of the Franciscan Order (1182-
1517), Milwaukee (1954); A. Leon, Historie de VOrdre des Freres Mineurs, Paris (1954); T.
Nyberg, Brigittinische Klostergrundungen des Mittelalters, Leiden (1967); A. Walz,
Compendium historiae Ordinis Praedicatorum, Rome, 1948 (second edition); A. Mortier,
Historie des maitres generaux de Vordre des freres precheurs, Paris (1903 ff.).

19. M. J. Dinic, Verti Eberharda Windeckea o Bosni, Jugoslavenski istoriski casopis


(1935); J. Sidak, "Ecclesia Slavoniae" i misija dominikanaca u Bosni, Zbornik Filozofskog
Fakulteta u Zagrebu (1955).

20. Vladimir Dedijer, Sarajevo 1914.

21. Joza Horvat, Zdenko Stambuk, Dokumenti o proturnarodnom radu i zlocinima jednog
dijela katolickog klera. Profasisticka djelatnost i ucesce jednog dijela katolickog klera u
teroristickoj ustaskoj organizaciji prije rate, period I, pp. 3-11.

22. Bogdan Krizman, Pavelic u bjegstvu, Zagreb (1985), pp. 437 and 438.
PART ONE

THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

The Vatican's Attitude toward the Yugoslav Peoples Since the Nineteenth Century

The role played by the Church under the leadership of the Vatican in the Second World
War—the collaboration of the pope with Mussolini's Italy, with Hitler's Germany, and
with the Ustashe of Ante Pavelic, the gravediggers of Yugoslavia and betrayers of the
Yugoslav people—has its roots already in the earliest history of this organization.

A glance at history beginning in the sixth to seventh century would yield enough material
to confirm again and again the quintessence of the following presentation: that the
Church avails itself of sinister figures and does not shy from any crime, no matter how
terrible it may be, if it can thereby reach its goals. The goals of this publication will be
served if we limit ourselves to that part of history that immediately precedes the period of
time in question, namely the events of this century, especially at the time of the First
World War. It can be determined that the role of the Vatican in the Second World War
and the relationship with Yugoslavia are the completely logical and natural result and
development of old trends and interests.

The second half of the nineteenth century was characterized by an ever closer
collaboration between the Vatican and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The Popes Pius
IX and Leo XIII worked intensively on the consolidation of this alliance, since Austro-
Hungary, as a feudalistic and

61

62 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

reactionary monarchy, had remained the only solid support of the papacy in Europe. Both
sides had many reasons to fear the progress that was being felt at this time in growing
liberalism, bourgeois democracy, and the first signs of socialism. The suggestion by Leo
XIII to King Franz Josef I shows the hopes instilled in the Viennese monarchy: to create a
"league of Catholic states" with the "Austrian emperor and the apostolic king of Hungary"
at its head. Its main purpose was to return to the papacy the secular and spiritual position
and influence that it was about to lose partially and in many respects no longer had.

The pope tried with all his personal powers to place the power of the Church in Austro-
Hungary at the service of the monarchy. For this reactionary state, the sustained
influence of the clergy on the disadvantaged people was an important aid. Thus the
Church, especially the upper clergy, became a political factor of the first rank and at the
most stabilizing moment for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Especially in areas with a Slavic population, the Church played an outstanding role where
dissatisfaction and resistance to Vienna and Budapest were evident during the whole
second half of the nineteenth century and were becoming more and more dangerous for
the monarchy. The national rebirth of the northern and southern Slavic peoples in
Austro-Hungary, their longing for a free political, economic, and cultural life, which took
on the ever clearer contours of an emancipation movement and of an independent
government, galvanized the Church and the monarchy ever more defensively. The first
efforts of the Slavic peoples in the south to unite into their own Yugoslav state, which
also included the Slavs outside the borders, disturbed the monarchy and the Vatican
immensely. A united Slavic state appeared to be very dangerous both to Catholicism and
to the monarchy. For the pope, the monarchy represented a "Bulwark of Catholicism" in
central Europe, a barrier, a defense against the threat from the east, i.e., against
Orthodoxy. The borders of Austro-Hungary on the east were to remain the borders for the
Catholic Church too. But there was no intention of preserving them there, but they were
to be extended as far as possible to the east in order to gain new territory for Catholicism.
The Vatican especially feared the fact that these areas would be more difficult to combat if
Serbia were to become an independent state and Orthodoxy— as for example in czarist
Russia—were to become the state religion. The connection of the Croats and the Slovenes
with the Orthodox Serbs could mean a spread of Orthodoxy to the west to the
disadvantage of the Roman Church. The papacy would not stand for that at all.

The role of the Vatican in the politics of Austro-Hungary assumed fateful characteristics
especially at the beginning of the twentieth century when Austro-Hungary oriented itself
imperialistically against the southeast

and forged plans for the conquering of a large part of the Balkan. This opened new
perspectives for the Vatican too. The occupation of Bosnia ended with its annexation in
1908. Thus not only the monarchy was extended, but so was the dominion of the Catholic
Church. The next victim was to be Serbia. With the subjugation of Serbia, a united
Yugoslav state was to be prevented. In order to achieve this, the monarchy also had to
suppress Croatia and Slovenia with a hard hand. According to the Pope's conviction,
Catholicism was to push from Croatia deep into the eastern Balkan through the
destruction of the independence of Serbia. For this reason the pope was among those who
incited Austro-Hungary to wage war against Serbia.

The anti-Slav, pro-Austrian policy of the Vatican was expressed especially under the
leadership of Pope Pius X, who was beatified in 1950. In the decree of beatification it says:

Blessed with the holy sacraments, he commended to God a soul on 20 August 1914, at the
beginning of the European war, which he tried to prevent with all his means, broken more
through pain than through the years.

So he died from pain and sadness over the outbreak of the war! He did not succeed in
preventing the war! And thus he was beatified and received the highest honors. The truth
is somewhat different.
In the book La Papaut'e contemporaine (Paris 1946), Professor Henry Marc-Bonnet
writes:

In 1903 Cardinal Sarto was elected pope and thereafter was called Pius X. He was elected
because, different from the second most important Cardinal Rampolla, the former
secretary to Pope Leo XII, he sided with Austro-Hungry. ... At the head of the Church was
a man who igored the whole of the contemporary world and was inspired by high,
authoritarian principles. ... He created conflicts everywhere with his principles, not only
with the clergy and the faithful but also with the states. . . . From the beginning he was
seen not without reason as the pope of the Three Powers Pact [i.e. the federation between
Austro-Hungary, Germany, and Italy, author's note]. ... As a result of his Church policy,
Pius X broke relationships with France. There were tensions with Russia because of
Poland. He argued with England because of Ireland. There was also a fight with America:
He did not receive the American president Theodore Roosevelt when the latter came to
Rome in 1910, because the latter had visited a Methodist church. With the diversion from
France, he subscribed completely to Austro-Hungary, which was becoming the most
important Catholic power, which is documented also by the great Eucharistic Congress in
Vienna in 1912. Austro-Hungry was a conservative Catholic state in which, quite in the
taste of the pope, hierarchy and discipline reigned.

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

The French author emphasizes: "In the final analysis, Austro-Hungarian expansion was in
agreement with papal policy at the cost of the Orthodox Slavs."

Indeed, Pius X hated the Slavs whether they were Orthodox or not. He favored Vienna's
policy against the Slavs in every way, so that in his time the Slovenian as well as the
Croatian bishops became pretences not only of the Roman but also of the Viennese anti-
Slav attitude, and the Church thus thwarted the liberation efforts and the just national
demands of the Croats and the Slovenes. Even if Croatian and Slovenian bishops and
priests pretended to act in the interest of their land, in actuality they were pursuing a
policy of loyalty and subjugation to Austro-Hungary. This was in compliance with the
wishes of the pope, who saw Austro-Hungary as a firm bulwark against the "dangerous
east."

[... .]*

The Austro-Hungarian emperor and King Franz Josef I in 1914 declared war on the Serbs
only after the approval, indeed the direct order, of the pope, as whose most loyal son he
signed himself. In the official publication of the "Commission for modern Austrian
History" there is a telegram that the then Austro-Hungarian ambassador to the Vatican,
Count Moritz Palffy directed to the Viennese foreign ministry on 29 July 1914:

In times of the greatest political tension as we are experiencing them today, human
fantasy works with doubled efforts and unwittingly exceeds the limits of reasonable
judgment. Thus in recent days, among other things, news has appeared in the public that
the Pope has intervened in the conflict with Serbia and has turned to His Imperial-Royal
Apostolic Highness with the request to spare the Christian peoples the horrors of war. . . .
Contrary to the statements in the press, it is not uninteresting what the curia actually
thinks. When I visited the State Secretary (Cardinal Merry del Val) two days ago, he
immediately directed the conversation to the great questions and problems occupying
Europe today. It was impossible to detect any special mildness or reconciliation in the
remarks of His Eminence. He depicted the method of handling Serbia very severely, but
he approved them without reservation and at the same time gave direct expression to his
hope that the monarchy pursue the matter to a successful resolution. The Cardinal felt it
was of course regrettable that Serbia "had not been reduced" even

♦Indicates a section in the original Yugoslavian version of the book by Vladimir Dedijer
that has been omitted in the German and English translations. These omissions were
approved by Vladimir Dedijer. See p. 25.

earlier, because this could have taken place with far less danger then that now. This
pronouncement is also in agreement with the pope's opinion. In the course of recent
years, His Holiness has expressed His regret about the fact that Austro-Hungary has
missed the opportunity to punish its dangerous Danube neighbor. The question could
arise, why the Catholic Church, in a time in which it is ruled by a pope who is a real saint
and completely filled with true apostolic ideas, appears to be so belligerent. The answer is
quite simple. The pope and the curia see in Serbia a gnawing disease that is slowly
destroying the marrow of the monarchy and in time will cause its dissolution. Along with
all other efforts that the curia has undertaken in recent decades, Austro-Hungary, as a
thoroughly Catholic state, is and remains the strongest bulwark remaining to the Church
in this century. The destruction of this bulwark would mean for the Church the loss of a
strong support in its fight against Orthodoxy and this also the loss of its strongest
champion. As it is for these reasons absolutely necessary for pure self-preservation for
Austria to liberate its organism from the evil that threatens it—and if it must be, with
violence—it is necessary for the Catholic Church to undertake all measures and to
sanction all measures that can serve to achieve this goal. From this viewpoint, one can
very easily see a connection between the perceptions and the belligerent attitude of the
pope.

This document says everything and reveals the "holy" pope thoroughly as the most
inveterate war monger, who for imperialistic and self-serving reasons promoted the
shedding of blood. We will cite yet another document, a telegram from Baron Ritter, the
Bavarian ambassador to the Vatican, which is dated 16 July 1914—i.e., before the telegram
from Palffy.

The pope sanctions the sharp procedures against Serbia. He does not value the Russian
and French armies very highly in case of a war against Germany. The Cardinal-State
Secretary hopes that Austria this time will persevere and that with its army it will
suppress the foreign agitation that led to the murder of the successor to the throne and
under the present conditions ultimately seriously perils the existence of Austria. All this
confirms how very much the curia fears pan-Slavism.

These documents of curial cold-bloodedness were embarrassing to the Vatican. It tried


thus to prove their inauthenticity, but not only the official archives in Vienna and Munich
(who published these documents), but also first-rank scientists and respected historians
have proven that they are authentic. That they are embarrassing to the Vatican is
understandable, and their significance increases even more when one notes that they
originate from an Austrian and a Bavarian diplomat, i.e., from very pious people who
enjoyed the greatest trust in the Vatican and who themselves shared the pope's opinion
and—as Palffy says—were happy about the "belligerent

66 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

attitude" of the canonized Pius X.

Count Carlo Sforza, the former Italian foreign minister and after the end of fascism the
right hand of the Christian Democrat de Gasperi, quotes in his book Founders of
Contemporary Europe this telegram from Palffy in order to prove that Pius was a war
monger. Sforza wrote this book in exile at the time of fascism. In it he characterizes the
popes Pius X, Pius XI, and Benedict XV very cogently. It is interesting what Sforza says
about the decree on the beatification of Pius X, concerning the notion that the latter died
of pain over the outbreak of the war:

The legend portrays Pius X as he is praying to God and struggling against the war because
he is horrified by just the thought that the Christian world could be divided into two
hostile camps and thus he dies of pain because of Germany's attack on Belgium and
because of the whole horror of war. . . .

Sforza says that it is time to destroy this legend:

This regent (the most Catholic of all regents, Franz Josef) declared that he was starting
the war to punish the Serbs. Millions of outraged people were hoping that the pope would
intervene to prevent the catastrophe. From this hope arose the legend that Pius X, when
he had learned of the ultimatum to Serbia, was said to have ordered his Viennese nuncio
to chastise the old emperor and king in the name of the Almighty. This drama received its
last act: When the pope died unexpectedly on 20 August 1914, his attendants announced
that the good Pius died of pain when he saw that he could no longer prevent the great
bloodshed. I would say it is time to establish the truth.

[....]

Benedict XV continued the line from Pius X after the latter's death. His politics differed
only in nuances from that of Pius X; they were basically just as reactionary and devoid of
scruples. He too supported the war but the situation was now more complicated since
Italy in 1915 also entered the war and joined the side of the entente, i.e., against the papal
allies Austro-Hungary and Germany. Benedict XV was a diplomat and careerist. He was
elected to pope by cardinals who for the most part stood on the side of Austro-Hungary
and Germany. They were convinced that this side would carry off the victory and
therefore one needed a pope who would stand one hundred percent on the victorious side
and would be in a position to exploit this victory. Thus the cardinals intended to pressure
the Italian regime to join the side of Austro-Hungary and Germany. They let themselves

be guided by the idea that in this case the "Roman question" would at last be solved and
Italy at the end of the war would get a conservative Catholic government.

[■-.]

It is interesting that Benedict XV still wished for the preservation of Austro-Hungary and
Germany at a point when Italy was already in the war with Austro-Hungary and Germany,
while Russia, because of the revolution, was no longer a factor on the side of the entente.
He did not want Austro-Hungary to dissolve under the blows of the superior entente and
have Slavic states arise on its territory, who then would withdraw from the Catholic
influence of Vienna. Czechoslovakia with its hussitic tradition seemed to him too
insecure for Catholicism. He was not sympathetic to the idea of a Yugoslav state, because
Serbia as an Orthodox land and center of the new state would represent a power factor
even without the czarist Orthodoxy and thus would burden Rome's influence. Poland's
fate also gave him concern. Above all else arose the possibility that without the striking
power of the militant official Catholicism, progressive ideas could gain influence in the
divided eastern and central Europe and in the territory of the old monarchy of Austro-
Hungary.

Nevertheless, Benedict XV toward the end of the First World War had to see that—
independent from his wishes—the defeat of Austro-Hungary and Germany was
unavoidable. So he hurried to save himself from his vile plans, whatever was to be saved,
and fell upon the idea of the "Peace without victors" He slipped into the role of the go-
between between Austro-Hungary and the entente, which he intended to reconcile. In
July 1917 the Austro-Hungarian monarch, Karl, addressed the pope with the "Letter from
a Son" He informed him that he would leave it to the "high authority" to do something for
peace. The pope through his nuncio in Munich, Pacelli (the later Pius XII), came to an
agreement with the German chancellor about the bases of a peace, the so-called White
Peace. He suggested the construction of a Catholic Polish state that should offer its crown
to the Austrian emperor. Furthermore, he wished for the elimination of Orthodox
influence in the Balkan. The territorial concessions of Austria to Italy were to be reduced.
Germany and Austro-Hungary were to remain as monarchies in their old borders. All the
suggestions complied with the traditional papal interests and opposed the democratic
goals with which some peoples had gone into the war. Especially they contradicted the
peaceful efforts of the Slavic peoples in Austro-Hungary, primarily those of the southern
Slavs, who were hated by the pope. The

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

intervention of the pope, however, proved without success, for the entente had no interest
in saving Germany and Austro-Hungary.

[....]

Contrary to the wishes and visions of the pope, Austro-Hungary collapsed and neither the
tripartite program—i.e., the aggressive plans of Austro-Hungary, Germany, and Italy—nor
Benedict's "White Peace" could save it. Yugoslavia came into being.

From the beginning, the pope was hostile to the young Yugoslav state which he had not
been able to prevent. He could not warm up to the idea that millions of Catholics were to
live in a state that was not 100 percent Catholic. It seemed downright unimaginable that
Yugoslavia could become a state in which there were confessions other than Catholicism.

For that reason, the Vatican set great hopes on nationalistic groupings that were to fight
against Yugoslavia and bring about its fall. In April 1919, the state secretary of the Vatican,
Cardinal Gasparri, the next authority after the pope, toward the "Petit Parisien"
pronounced himself in favor of the establishment of an independent Slovene and
Croatian republic. The Italian historian Luigi Salvatorelli in his book La Politica della
Santa Sede (Milan 1937, p. 77) also writes of this. According to the records of the French
journalist Maurice Pax, Cardinal Gasparri emphasized his regret that Austro-Hungary had
collapsed because it had always represented a barrier against the encroachment of
Orthodoxy from the east. The efforts of the Vatican thus were directed at separating the
Croats and the Slovenes from the Orthodox Serbs in their own separate and autonomous
state and establishing them spiritually in a central European Catholic block in whose
center was to stand the new Austria.
For this reason, the Vatican also hesitated to recognize the new Yugoslav state. It did this
for the first time on 6 November 1919, one year after the founding of the new state.

However, the Vatican was further hostilely opposed to Yugoslavia and passed up no
opportunity to do it harm. This attitude came to light especially in the difficult peace talks
upon the occasion of the Italian-Yugoslav quarrels concerning the Julijska Krajina [the
border land of the Julian Alps, translator's note]. In Paris in 1919 when a heavy diplomatic
struggle over Istria and Rijeka was underway, the Osservatore Romano, the official organ
of the Vatican, encouraged the Italian imperialists Orlando and Sonnino and called on
Wilson, the president of the United States, to put pressure on Yugoslavia. When Italian
delegates left Paris as a sign of protest over not getting Dalmatia promised to them, the
organ of the Vatican wrote: "The Italian delegates were fully justified in citing the London
Pact. They

will return when they are guaranteed that the rights recognized by the London Pact are
observed literally or actually." (We here quote the Vatican organ according to Les Temps
of Paris, 10 May 1919.) The Holy See asserted its influence in Paris and London during
this time to the benefit of the Italian imperialists. In Osservatore Romano (Nr. 166) in
1920, the Vatican stirred up the president of the Italian government, Giolitti, against the
Yugoslavs, who had just protested the Italian intervention against the Slavs in the Julijska
Krajina. It expressed its admiration for Giolitti's "energetic" handling of Yugoslavia: ". . . it
had been demonstrated that he is prepared to control invading enemies with a merry
hand. " The Osservatore Romano had taken over the well known slogan of the extremist
Italian nationalists, whereby Italy in the First World War saved Serbia, which was now
allegedly being ungrateful by demanding Istria and Dal-matia. It published on 3 August
1921 (after the borders had long been established!), in follow-up to a discussion in the
Italian senate on the relationship to Yugoslavia, an article by its director, the Count della
Torre. Delia Torre, who thoroughly ascribed to the views of the pope, maintained that
Dalmatia was Italian territory and that "Italy should never have given it up." He regretted
that Rijeka had been granted to Yugoslavia. By the way, the Italian "People's Party," drawn
into all Yugoslav matters by the pope, also took an extremely nationalistic standpoint
especially regarding the Adriatic quarrels.

In April 1921, the Ljubljanian bishop Jeglic, under pressure of public opinion, intervened
with the Vatican state secretary Gasparri in favor of some Slovene priests in Julijska
Krajina, who were being persecuted by the Italian police. According to Jeglic's description
(who otherwise was a subservient servant to Gasparri), the state secretary of the Vatican
rejected him with the words: "You are asking that we protect irredentism against our
homeland. You are asking that we protect traitors."

In all of the following twenty-five years, especially in the era of fascism, the Vatican
worked against the interests of the Slavs by supporting an anti-national policy in the
Julijska Krajina. It supported fascism unconditionally with its policy of destabilizing
Yugoslavia. Through Bishop Santini from Rijeka, Pope Pius XI rudely informed the
Croatian priests of Istria, who were fighting the abolishment of the Croatian language in
the Church, that their position was sinful and that he in their place would not want to
stand before Christ, who would judge them. In the Lateran Pact with fascism in 1929, the
pope gave Mussolini new possibilities of banning the Croatian and Slovene languages
decisively from the churches of Julijska Krajina.

The relationships of the Vatican to old Yugoslavia during the whole time of its coming
into being were tense and hostile. The question of religious

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

instruction in the schools, of agrarian reform, of the naming of bishops, etc. were all
arguments around which the anti-Yugoslav fight revolved. The Vatican could not get used
to the idea that in one state millions of Catholics, Croats, and Slovenes had to share life,
laws, and duties with millions of Orthodox Serbs and that it was not the highest authority
in this state as is usually the case in other states.

In spite of the Vatican's basic rejection of old Yugoslavia, clerical political parties from
Slavonia and Croatia cooperated in the Belgrade government. Especially the priest
Korosec, the leader of the Slovene clerics, became involved as the minister of education
and of the interior. The reason for this was the fact that the Vatican hoped thus to be able
to achieve some of its goals and regain lost positions.

Indeed the constant line from the Vatican was characterized by the effort to destroy
Yugoslavia. Therefore, even when it was for all appearances supporting the Yugoslav
government, the Vatican was actively working together with the high clergy of Yugoslavia
to radicalize separatist nationalistic movements. The Vatican founded in Croatia the
Clerical Nationalistic Front, which quickly developed into an outright clero-fas-cist
organization. The so-called Frankian Nationalistic Movement [after the right-wing radical
party founded in the nineteenth century by Josip Frank, translator's note] got an ever
stronger clerical character. The Usta-shadom, the organizational nucleus of the fascist
movement, was a conglomerate of Frankian and clerical ideas and individuals. The
representatives of the bourgeoisie, primarily lawyers and priests, were the cornerstones of
the Ustashe. The priesthood very early became the pillars and leading cadre of
Ustashadom. The Catholic press was characterized by the spirit of the Ustashe, although
for demagogic reasons it pretended to be separated from the Ustasha and on the surface
represented Church and religious interests.

The Ustasha movement carried out illegal actions, took up terror, and organized
insurrections. The leader of the movement, Ante Pavelic, lived in emigration. From there
he directed the action. He was supported and financed by Italian fascism. In Italy and in
Hungary there were bases for the paramilitary terroristic formations of the Ustashe who
had been channeled into the country. Mussolini was in touch with Pavelic and his
organization. The assault on King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseille was carried out by
the fascist leadership in Italy and by the Ustashe. Sentenced by a French court, Pavelic
found safe refuge under Mussolini's protection in Italy.

But there were also close ties between Pavelic and the Vatican. He was a guest in Vatican
quarters and later publicly praised the work of Vatican prelates for the Ustasha
movement. The ties were all the closer

the more the Vatican collaborated with Mussolini's regime. The Lateran pact of 1929
verifies the correspondence of interest between the Vatican and Italian fascism.
Mussolini's plan for the destruction of Yugoslavia agreed basically with the intentions and
efforts of the Vatican. On this basis they were in agreement with the Nazis, and the roles
in this plot were distributed quite precisely.

In 1937 Pavelic also explained in his book The Deadly Sins the goals of his movement
with regard to the difficult situation of Catholicism in Yugoslavia. Repeatedly he
emphasizes that the Croats cannot stay in a state that is determined "to alter the
thoousand-year orientation of Croatian Catholics and to break the existing relations of
the Croats to the Holy See." He attacks the state in which "Christ's representatives are
scorned" and in which "bitter enemies of Catholicism and of papal spiritual power" live.
The Vatican and even the pope himself repeatedly let their followers, the Ustashe, know
that their goal is ultimately the destruction of Yugoslavia and that they gave their blessing
to all those efforts and sacrifices demanded by the realization of this goal. In 1943 Petar
Grgec noted in the magazine Croatia Sacra (Nr. 20-21) that Pius XI in 1925 blessed the
pilgrims from Croatia, and he interpreted this as a blessing on the destruction of
Yugoslavia:

The Croats continued their lives with this blessing. With it they were revived and with it
they will preserve their highest ideals: their belief in the Almighty—and in their
Independent Free State of Croatia.

In 1939 a group of pilgrims close to the Ustashe presented to the pope a letter from the
"People's Representative," in which the desire for the destruction of Yugoslavia was
expressed, which was later presented in the brochure La formazione cattolica della
Croazia (Rome 1943) by Dr. Ivo Guberina, that priest and Ustasha officer who in exile for
many years preserved the relationship between Pavelic and the Vatican. The text runs as
follows:

The history of the eternal struggle of the Croatian people shows a fight for independence.
This fight has been carried out simultaneously with the effort to maintain the
relationship with the Holy See and is yet today the surest proof of the loyalty of the
Croatian people to the holy Roman Catholic Church. Nothing can change this attitude of
the Croats.
Thus-blessed Ustashadom, i.e., clerofascism, attacked Yugoslavia ever more sharply. In
order to achieve its goal faster, hate between the Serbian and Croatian part of the
population was stirred up.

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

[....]

Primarily action was against the Serbs, who had the major part of the government in
Belgrade, indeed against all the Serb people, whereby especially the difference between
the religions was emphasized. The religious motif was basic and fundamental.

In the Zagreb Hrvatska Smotra (1943, Nr. 7-10) the Ustasha priest Dr. Ivo Guberina
writing under the title "Ustashadom and Catholicism" told of the themes that united the
Catholic Church and even the pope himself with the Croatian separatist movement and
Ustashadom in the destruction of Yugoslavia:

In 1918 the Croats got into a state and political constellation against which they had
fought for centuries. Croats fell into an eastern-oriental pot in which, according to those
in power, the Croatian nation was to disappear. Croats were to be annihilated as a
bulwark of the Christian west. Many Catholics were misled and even formed movements
that saw Yugoslavia as a necessary way to come to ecclesiastical unity between the
eastern and the western Church, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. When this Yugoslavia
became reality, Byzantium was not remotely thinking of Church unity in the sense of the
Catholic movement, but rather pursued in this greater Serbian state the goal of
Byzantinizing the whole Croatian people culturally and Serbinizing them politically—
making them Serbs. . . .

Here Guberina reveals the old intention of Catholicizing the Serbs! He continues:

Yugoslavia has experienced what the Vatican never saw in its two-thousand-year history.
Here Byzantium through its exponent Serbia has simply spit into the face of Catholicism
and its representative, the papacy. The persecution that it has conducted against the
concordat maintains the soul, the position, and the efforts of Serbia, of Serbdom, and its
power in Yugoslavia. Although the official government was for the concordat, it had to
kneel before Serbdom and its spiritual leadership, the Serbian Orthodox Church. Precisely
in the state that according to the wish of Catholic circles was to serve as a bridgehead of
the Vatican in the Balkan, Catholicism had been forced into constant defense and in the
question of the concordat experienced such a collapse that now it must be clear even to a
blind man how little the Yugoslav state could serve as a means to Church unity.

Again Guberina makes clear the Vatican's efforts to Catholicize Serbia, but also expresses
the idea that there could be no more hope of such a

thing. Especially because of this, the Vatican would have no more interest in the further
existence of Yugoslavia:

All reasons therefore require the separation of Croatia from Serbia and the division of
Yugoslavia, this miscreation of a state. Primarily the historical significance of Croatia
demands this, then the role that Pope Leo XIII had so ceremoniously expressed when he
called us the "Bulwark of Christianity." In order to achieve this goal, we had to enter the
open, bloody war with that people and that system that has enslaved Croatia in the last 22
years, namely the Serbian people and its state. One has to be aware that this war is not in
contradiction to Christian principles. Until 1929 the struggle was conducted on a
parliamentary level; later the Croats changed their methods and took up arms. The Serbs
understood only this language: the exploding of bombs in the unliberated homeland, the
insurrection in Lika, the murder in Marseille, and finally the rebellion of 6 April 1941.

This is the view of the Catholics and of the Ustashe about the relationships of the
Catholic Church and the papacy with Yugoslavia. Therewith the development of the
Croatian Catholic movement into terroristic clero-fascism becomes clearer. It is also
clearer why the Vatican policy after the enumerated failures to assure Vatican influence
in Yugoslavia moved into an openly separatist line and why, after the failed intent to
realize a subtle dominance on the part of the Vatican, Croatian clericalism became
radicalized and fascist. The Vatican, so it seems, was striving from the beginning to absorb
the Serbian-Orthodox Church via their bridgehead and to Catholicize all of Yugoslavia.
But when the "unification" of the Church ran into resistance and finally became
illusionary, the Vatican broke the staff over Yugoslavia, identified its further goals with
those of Croatian clero-fascism and strove to destroy Yugoslavia. It informed its
handymen there that "this war is not in contradiction to Christian principles" (Guberina),
not even when the methods were changed. Thus we went from the terrain of
parliamentary struggle to a bloody battle. That was precisely what was demanded by the
role that Leo XIII had determined for Croatia when he called it the "bulwark of
Christianity"!

With the reference to the role of Ustashadom and Catholicism in the destruction of
Yugoslavia, the Catholic priest Dr. Ivo Guberina praised bomb terror, assaults, murders,
and finally occupation by Italy and the usurpation of power by Ustashadom; all this was
in agreement with the principles of the Holy Church! He said:

With these means, the Independent state of Croatia was constructed. Byzantian-Orthodox
pressure on Croatia was eliminated and thereby the possibility was created to make
Croatia the bulwark of Europe. The Inde-

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

pendent state of Croatia is the only significant Catholic state in the Balkan, the only
gateway of Catholicism to the Balkan. And not only that, the Independent State of Croatia
is today the strongest bulwark of central Europe. . . . The Croatian people are not pan-
Slavistic and will not become so. We have experienced such phenomena in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century. That led to a Yugoslav Utopia that almost cost us our head.
All these bloody experiences have brought a new state-supportive element to the surface
of our organism and has made a leading spot for it, in opposition to the Slavic one. . . .
That state-supportive element in the Croatian organism, which in the form of the Ustasha
movement got its organizational form, created the Independent Croatian state. Croatian
Catholicism is obliged to the Ustasha movement in many points. This all the more so
since it has never collided with Catholic principles neither through its work nor through
its principles. Its revolutionary work is in complete harmony with Catholic morality.

This Catholic Ustasha ideologue then goes on into an interpretation typical for him and
his sort:

All in all, Croats and Serbs are two worlds—north and south pole—that will never meet,
unless by God's miracle. The schism [i.e., Orthodoxy, author's note] is the greatest curse
of Europe, almost greater than Protestantism. There is no morality there, no principles,
no truth, no justice, no honor.

(Vol. IV, p. 176)

In addition to this obstinate hate, it is also clear which side the Catholic Church in
Croatia, under the direct influence and direction of the Vatican, represents with its high
clergy.*

[....]

♦From Secret Documents on the relationship between the Vatican and the Ustasha-NDH
[Independent State of Croatia, translator's note], Bibliothek des Journalistenverbandes
[Library of the Union of Journalists], Zagreb, 1952, pp. 7-24.

Initial Contacts Between Pius XII and Pavelic

Already at the time of Pavelic's emigration, i.e., already before the German and Italian
attack and the founding of the so-called Independent State of Croatia, there were
relationships between Ustashadom and the Vatican. But here we are only interested in
how the relationship between this new puppet figure, the poglavnik [i.e., "leader,"
translator's note] Ante Pavelic, and the Vatican was established. We would like to
illuminate this fact on the basis of undeniable documents.

As already mentioned, there was a diary of the Zagreb archbishop Dr. Aloijzije Stepinac, in
which he regularly, in his own hand (or by dictating to his ceremonial assistant) entered
all events of significance, especially those in which he was active. In volume IV of this
diary, he noted on pages 205 to 207, with the date of 27 April 1941, the following:

In the first days after the return of the poglavnik, the archbishop had the first meeting
with him in the former courtyard of the Banus palace. . . . The archbishop wished him
God's blessing on his work. . . . When the archbishop had finished, the poglavnik said that
he would be of assistance in everything concerning the Catholic Church. He said that he
would eliminate the old-Catholic sect, which was nothing more than a society promoting
marital divorce. He added that he would not be tolerant of the Serbian-Orthodox Church,
because it for him was no church but rather a political organization. From all of that, the
archbishop got the impression that the poglavnik was an upright Catholic and that the
Church would have free-

75

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

dom in its actions although the archbishop did not succumb to the illusion that
everything would happen without difficulty.

So that was the first meeting, the first contact of an official nature. At this first encounter,
the Zagreb archbishop spontaneously wishes "God's blessing on the work" of a criminal
(and a murderer sentenced by the court)! Here the archbishop hears extremely brutal
utterances of Pavelic about other churches, especially the very significant phrase "that he
would not be tolerant of the Serbian-Orthodox Church, because it for him was no church
but rather a political organization." Neither in front of Pavelic nor in his diary does
Stepinac disapprove of or criticize this attitude. Quite to the contrary: In direct connection
to this revelation of persecuting the Serbs ruthlessly, Stepinac describes how he got the
impression that the poglavnik was an upright Catholic. He seems to be glad that he would
promote his own church on the ruins of the Serbian Orthodox Church with Pavelic's help.

On the basis of this impression, which never changed in Stepinac— not even when blood
flowed in the rivers of Croatia— he rushed to help Pavelic and to establish diplomatic
relationships with the Vatican, i.e., with Pope Pius XII himself. This was done by the chief
representative of the Church in Croatia without the slightest hesitation or reservations, as
one can see in the quoted diary.

Under this same date (27 April 1941) and in regard to the meeting with Pavelic, Stepinac
writes:

On his trip to Rome, the auditor of the nunciature of Belgrade came to Zagreb. He visited
the archbishop, who upon this occasion explained to him the situation and asked him to
go to the Holy Father and explain everything to him orally, since the mail was not
possible. The archbishop recommended heartily that there may be an establishment of
relations or of de-facto recognition of the state of Croatia by the Holy See. . . . After the
conversation with the auditor of the nunciature, the archbishop went to the poglavnik and
informed him that he had taken steps to assure the first contact between the Holy See
and the independent State of Croatia. The poglavnik listened attentively. (The notation
was made by the Ceremonial Assistant Cvetan.)

The matter is thus quite clear. The auditor of the nunciature mentioned here was the
diplomatic functionary of the Vatican in Belgrade [Marcone, translator's note]. The
Vatican still had diplomatic relations with the Yugoslav state, which even later were never
formally interrupted. But precisely the member of the nunciature in Belgrade who
traveled via Zagreb to Rome

Initial Contacts Between Pius XII and Paveli'c 11

upon the initiative of archbishop Stepinac was to steer matters so that Pavelic or the
Ustasha-NDH "as quickly as possible" would receive support of the Vatican. Stepinac
asked the Vatican to recognize the NDH de facto, because it was clear to him that the
recognition de jure was not possible. Stepinac did this not unwillingly, for it is noted that
he "heartily recommended." After the conversation, Stepinac rushed immediately to
Pavelic to inform him of the fact that he had spoken in his favor. Here the wording: ". . .
that he took steps to assure the first contact ..." After two weeks the pope's answer came.
In volume IV of the diary of Stepinac on page 216 is the entry:

The auditor of the nunciature in Belgrade returned from Rome and visited the archbishop
to summarize the conversation with the Holy Father. He reported that the Holy Father
listened attentively and then requested the auditor to inform the archbishop that he as
soon as possible was to send a written report to Rome. Upon this occasion, the Holy
Father said that the initiative for the establishment of diplomatic relations was to come
from the government and that the Holy See as of now has not received anything.

Stepinac's intervention thus was successful. Pope Pius XII saw no barriers and made no
objections regarding the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations and recognizing
the Ustasha puppet state, although he knew precisely that in Croatia the slaughter of
Orthodox Serbs had begun. He recommended namely to Stepinac that he see to it that the
Serbs would not be "persecuted too severely," but he did not condemn the Ustasha
practice in principle. Neither did he mention that this persecution could determine
whether the relationship with Pavelic would be established or not. (At this time the
horrible massacre in the Orthodox Church in Glina had taken place in which hundreds of
people were slaughtered. . . .)

The pope thus asked Pavelic to take care of the formalities, i.e., to announce to the
Vatican the founding of his state and to express his wishes. The archbishop informed
Pavelic of this suggestion from the pope.

The poglavnik Ante Pavelic directed to Pope Pius XII a letter in Latin in which it was
stated that an "official paper" had already been sent to the Holy See, which contained the
announcement of the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia. This letter had a
special purpose: Pavelic emphasized in it his deep Catholic feelings and his absolute
submission to the pope; he saw—in the fact that the "Independent State" came into being
in the jubilee year—a sign from God that meant that even the pope had served himself
well in the realization of the "Independent State of Croatia." Pavelic wrote in this letter
literally:

78 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

We are certainly not far from the mark when we award this favor of the powerful defense
of the apostolic head, to which the Croatians were always loyal.

Pavelic asked the pope to recognize his state. He wrote:

Holy Father! Since divine providence has made it possible that I take over the helm of my
people and my homeland, I am firmly determined and wish fervently that the Croatian
people, faithful to their laudable past, also in the future remain loyal to the holy apostle
Peter and his followers and that our homeland, filled with the law of the New Testament,
become Christ's kingdom. In this truly great work, I fervently ask the aid of Your
Holiness. As such aid I first see that Your Holiness with Your highest apostolic authority
recognize our state, then that You deign as quickly as possible to send Your
representative, who will help me with Your fatherly advice, and finally that he impart to
me and my people the apostolic blessing. Kneeling at the feet of Your Holiness, I kiss
your sacred right hand as the obedient son of Your Holiness. .

Undoubtedly the pope was gladdened by this letter, in which a purported state sovereign
address him in a style uncommonly reminiscent of the medieval papal vassals. In all
likelihood, no head of any state has recently ever addressed such a humble letter to the
pope, especially in the twentieth century.

The criminal Pavelic revealed in his letter what he was most concerned about: the aid of
the pope. He "asks fervently" for this aid, because he was aware that he could thus carry
out his plan more easily.

[....]

A few days after the above-mentioned letter, Pavelic traveled to Rome accompanied by his
ministers, generals, and honor bearers. This undertaking had a double purpose: The
Ustasha-NDH, according to Mussolini's plan, was to become a kingdom. He saw a
member of the house of Savoy as king, namely the Duke of Spoleto, who was to be called
Tomislav II in order thus to emphasize the continuity between the old Croatian kingdom
of the Middle Ages and fascist Croatia. In Rome the Croatian crown was to be awarded to
the Savoy prince in a ceremony. The second purpose of Pavelic's pilgrimage was a
conversation with the pope.

The awarding of the Croatian crown to the savoy prince took place on 18 May 1941 in the
presence of the Italian king Viktor Emanuel III
and Mussolini. The Duke of Spoleto assumed the offer and agreed to be called Tomislav
II. 1

On this occasion the following took place with the cooperation of the pope:

One day before the ceremony, the pope received in a special audience the Duke of
Spoleto. This could not have been a coincidence; to the contrary, the audience took place
precisely because the pope was giving his approval to the designated king of Croatia to
receive the Croatian crown. This undertaking, too, among the Croatian Catholics and
before the public, was to rest on the authority of the pope. The papal intervention is all
the more significant when one considers that the Vatican at this time still maintained
diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia and that in the Vatican there was a Yugoslav
embassy. We will see that this dual policy also continued. The Vatican allegedly did not
want to prejudice the outcome of the war. The Vatican was "neutral." For these reasons, it
recognized the NDH de facto but not de jure. But its purportedly "reserved" attitude did
not prevent the pope in reality from supporting the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and
moving the Duke of Spoleto to receive "the Croatian crown." It is clear that the pope was
wishing for a solution that allowed him to have a monarchy in the Balkan under his
influence, and it especially suited him as an Italian (Pius XII was known as a "good
Italian") that a Savoy monarchy with splendid Catholic traditions was under
consideration. The role of the Savoy princes in the liquidation of the heresy in Italy is
historically proven. This dynasty even had saints. [. . .] Of course Pius XII, in addition to
the commendation to receive the crown, also gave the Duke of Spoleto advice on how he
in his function could be useful to the Vatican's interests in Croatia. When the Duke of
Spoleto received the Croatian crown one day later, he thus also had papal approval and
the papal blessing.

There were no details about this visit in the media, but in the official Vatican organ
Osservatore Romano, one could read that the visit coincided with the awarding of the
Croatian crown and specifically one day before the ceremony.

After the festive awarding of the Croatian crown, the pope also received Pavelic on the
same day. According to official reports in the Ustasha press in Zagreb, Pavelic
accompanied by his adjutant Colonel Sabljak and two Italian officers arrived at the
Vatican shortly before six o'clock. In one of the halls of the Vatican, a troop of papal Swiss
guards had been placed to honor the poglavnik. The Cardinal State Secretary Maglione
had approached Pavelic and conversed with him until six o'clock. At precisely six o'clock,
Cardinal Maglione led Pavelic into the library of Pius XII. Pavelic's conversation with the
pope lasted a half hour. Afterwards he introduced Pius to his adjutants. The pope
conversed with the two of

80 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY


them for approximately another ten minutes, during which time he showed an interest in
the religious conditions in Croatia. Finally he expressed the desire to see the entire
Croatian delegation. At 7:30, he received Pavelic's whole retinue, among which was also
the Zagreb bishop Salis Seevis. In the reports it says that the pope conversed with many of
those present. After he subsequently imparted his blessing, he took leave of Bishop Salis
Seevis in a particularly cordial fashion—"with the best wishes for the progress and
happiness of the Croatian people." 2

Katolicki list, the organ of the Zagreb archbishop, published in the issue of 21-22 May
1941 the following:

We first note the audience of the poglavnik with the Holy Father upon the occasion of his
first visit in Rome. This gesture shows us that the poglavnik esteems the successor to
Peter very highly and conducts his first trip to him in order to join the thousand-year
relations that unite the Croats with the Holy See. We feel we are correct when we ascribe
to this audience a greater significance than simply that of a superficial act of respect to a
sovereign staying over in Vatican City. On the other hand, the warm reception of the
poglavnik and the Croatian state delegation by the Holy Father Pius XII shows what an
international significance the Church attributes to the representatives of our national
state when it receives them so soon and so respectfully.

The Ustasha's main organ Hrvatski narod presents in its report from Rome:

People knowledgeable of the customs of the Vatican stress that it has never happened
that the holy Father has ever received anyone in a major audience on a Sunday and
especially in the late evening. This gesture from His Holiness Pope Pius XII is interpreted
as an act of special attention regarding the Croatian people.

On the same occasion Katolicki tjednik, the organ of the archbishopric of Sarajevo writes:
". . . that the Vatican is aware of the great significance of the revival of the NDH . . . and
therefore it is understandable that this event in the Vatican has evoked a vivid
satisfaction." The paper adds: "It is also important to the Vatican that the Croatian state
become as strong as possible." The organ of the Zagreb archbishopric, Katolicki list, writes
that with this visit in Rome, through which Croatia became Italy's vassal, "a dam has
stemmed the tide of Orthodoxy."

In the report that the pope sent to Stepinac through the auditor of the nunciature in
Belgrade (which we already learned from Stepinac's diary), the pope asked that Stepinac
report to him how one could make contact

with Pavelic. The bishop Salis-Seevis took this report to Rome. In Stepi-nac's diary
(volume IV, p. 223) we can read:

Today (17 May 1941) a delegation traveled to Rome with the poglavnik at its head. His
Eminence has sent a thorough report to the Holy Father through Bishop Salis.

Bishop Salis-Seevis immediately after his arrival delivered this "thorough report." It was
so worded that the pope without hesitation agreed to an audience, for which Pavelic had
asked and which Stepinac recommended to the pope. Bishop Salis-Seevis arranged all the
formalities regarding the audience for Pavelic.

Although the Ustasha-NDH was recognized neither de jure nor de facto, Pius XII received
Pavelic in a manner that was not usual for average people. Pavelic's audience with the
pope was "a private one" according to Osservatore Romano. Indeed Pavelic was received
like a head of state, and the conversation with the pope was recorded at his expressed
wish by a stenographer. Are these "private" audiences that are recorded by a stenographer
for the historical record not strange? And besides—what did the pope have to discuss with
Pavelic in "private"?!

With this conversation, the basis of that cooperation was laid that was to continue and
remain very close. The pope had blessed the poglavnik for the first time. Later he
accumulated many such blessings.

After this special audience for Pavelic, the pope received his whole retinue. He imparted
to the ministers and generals, these criminals, his blessing in cordial words as if he were
dealing with a group of pious and humble followers who on their knees before the vicar of
Christ on earth were experiencing the highest joy. 3

Notes

I. The special delegate of the Ustasha for the Vatican, Dr. Nikola Rusinovic, wrote to the
Ustasha Foreign Minister Mladen Lorkovic on 26 February 1942 on the subject of the
reasons that the king never came to Croatia: "He was very happy being King of Croatia,
but circumstances arose that made him decline to come to Croatia." The second special
delegate, Prince Erwin Lobkowicz, wrote to Lorkovic on 15 April 1943:

Princess Windischgratz told me of an encounter with the Duke of Aosta [this was the title
of the king after the death of his brother, the Duke of Aosta, author's note], who was
foreseen as king. The princess asked him whether he would soon go to Croatia;
whereupon the latter replied: "How could I even think of it, since the Italian government
with its impossible behavior and its constant errors is sabotaging friendly relations with
the Croats? How could I face the Croats?"

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

2. On the subject of the visit of the Duke of Spoleto and Pavelic with Pope Pius XII,
Gaetano Salvemini and Giorgio La Piana wrote in the book La sorte dell' Italia (Rome,
1945, pp. 169-70):
The attitude of the Vatican regarding the new kingdom of Croatia is of the greatest
significance. The crown was offered to Victor Emmanuel, who already possessed a great
number of related crowns and gave this one to his cousin, the Duke of Spoleto. Then a
delegation came to Rome, at whose head was that Ante Pavelic who five years earlier was
condemned to die by a French court in contumatiam as the perpetrator of the murder of
King Alexander of Serbia and who now became the quisling of Croatia. A coronation
ceremony was prepared there on 18 May 1941 for the new ruler. The plan to tear Catholic
Croatia away from Orthodox Serbia was not unwelcome to the Vatican, and if one
considers the prejudice that the pope showed toward the Savoy ruling house, then the
choice of the Duke of Spoleto to be the Croatian king had to have met the approval of the
pope. If however, this new puppet state, a creation of the axis powers, had been fully
officially recognized, then the enemies of Germany and Italy would have been justified in
considering this a blow to the neutrality of the Vatican. The Vatican solved the problem
with the help of one of its compromises, in which diplomatic hypocrisy, scholastic
casuistry, and subtle reserve go hand in hand. The pope received the Duke of Spoleto
exactly one day before the ceremony (i.e., before he was officially the King of Croatia).
Ante Pavelic, his first minister, and the whole Croatian delegation were received as a
group of "Catholic individuals" on the same day on which the ceremony of the declaration
of the kingdom of Croatia was completed. The Osservatore Romano, however, explained a
few lines earlier that Pavelic, who was received as a humble "Catholic individual," had not
come alone to the pope, but was in the company of a stenographer who surely recorded
the conversation. Thereafter, Pavelic introduced the whole Croatian delegation to the
pontifex as befits the ceremony for official audiences.

3. Excerpt from Secret Documents on the Relationships between the Vatican and the
Ustasha-NDH, pp. 31-35.

The Participation of Roman Catholic Priests in the Fascist Attacks on the Yugoslav Army

On 6 April 1941, fascist Germany insidiously attacked Yugoslavia. The German army
quickly advanced and entered Zagreb on 10 April. The Yugoslav people were informed
over the radio that they should immediately get in touch with the local offices, where they
would get instructions on what to do.

Pavelic was still in Italy. Germany demanded that a government be named immediately.
The Yugoslav army still represented a danger to the occupiers, because the soldiers were
armed. The Ustashe were to carry out the disarming of the Yugoslav army according to
the instructions they had already received in the respective locations. Among the Ustashe
who disarmed the Yugoslav soldiers were also a large number of priests, who organized
and directed this action.

Hrvatski narod in Nr. 1091 of 25 July 1944 published under the title "The pastor from
Neretva" an article on Don Ilija Thomas, which the priest Eugen Beluhan had written:
. . . therefore the Ustasha idea inflamed him with a joyful heart and already in 1937 we see
him as an enlisted Ustasha with his whole heart in the work and in the battle. ... He
worked with his neighbor from the other side of the Neretva, with the pastor from
Studenac Don Juro Vrdoljak-Biscevic. . . . Apparently it is not known to many that already
on 8 April 1941 the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed. . . . They disarmed

83

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

parts of the army that came past Caitina, even took away cannons. In doing so they were
supported by Croatian soldiers. Separated from the world and surrounded by the Serbian
army, they held out in constant danger and in constant battles until 20 April. Only then
did the Germans come to their aid. . . . Not long thereafter Don Ilija was named Ustasha
commissar for the whole area.

Hrvatski narod(Nr. 1051) published in June 1944 an article on the chaplain Ivan Miletic
under the title "The Pastor from Drina." Again the priest Eugen Beluhan was the author:

As a priest he was first a spiritual aid in Derventa, afterwards a military chaplain in the
army, where he with his work supported the destruction of the Yugoslav army during the
overthrow. After the founding of the Independent State of Croatia, he was entrusted with
one of the largest and most difficult districts,' the district of Visegrad, which extended to
four bishoprics.

He worked in cooperation with the Ustasha camp director 2 Ivan Kritic. When one is
stuck, the other comes to his aid, and thus they understand and support each other in
everything.

In Nedjelia, the weekly magazine for Catholic work, one finds the article "Yugoslavia's last
twitches on the island Pag" on 22 June 1941. Therein is described the disarming of the
Yugoslav army on Pag, in which the local pastor played the most important role. In this
article we read:

I left the church and some young first lieutenant saluted me with certain feelings of
sympathy. A short time later we met. It was Mr. Orsanic, and the surname was enough to
make us very cordial friends immediately (I had first thought that he was the son of the
professor and minister Ivan Orsanic, but we was only remotely related to him). From
then on our visits in my house lasted until late in the night. . . .

Ustasha officers were the following men: Orsanic, Rukavina, Pavicic, Grandovec, and
Jergovic. One of them had a secret radio transmitter in a valise so he could receive orders
from the poglavnik and from Ustashe from abroad. Tina Kustic, an enthusiastic follower
of our movement, sat ready all day at this apparatus and reported all news to me that I
otherwise would often hear personally. I avoided police and Serbian officers, because I
was suspicious to them. Late in the night young Ustasha Croats would meet at my house
and would thus pursue the development of events. The right reverend Sipanov from
Vlasic on the island of Pag also listened to the radio news and then on his bicycle
informed officers and the army. Any news of new events was received enthusiastically by
all of us. The connection with Senj was established and the Ustasha commando named
Mr. Jergovic

as the commandant of Pag. ... At midnight, First Lieutenant Orsanic came to me and
asked me as the oldest Croat officer to take the carbine and to pick out eight young men
to then capture Serbian officers, police, and toll officials.

The Ustasha newspaper Za Dom (Nr. 1), April 1941, reported the following:

Another priest who had joined with two toll officials took two generals and 40 officers
prisoner. A Franciscan with the help of some young men disarmed a whole Serbian troop.

All this was early Ustasha news on the heroic deeds of their followers and this still at the
time of the Yugoslav state.

In a petition to the ministry of agriculture on 7 May 1942 (Document Nr. 637), the Frater
Dr. Petar Berkovic quoted above, district leader for the county of Knin, who
simultaneously bragged that his parsonage was also an Ustasha residence, wrote about
his service for the Ustasha movement as follows:

Before the overthrow, I was an Ustasha security officer and state security officer. I
assumed civilian as well as military power and along with the Ustashe disarmed the
whole division. . .

{Documents of the Commission on the Establishment of Crimes of the Occupiers and


their Helpers, Nr. F. 4502-1).

The fact that Frater Dr. Petar Berkovic participated in the takeover of the military and
civil authority and took part in the disarming of the Yugoslav army can be seen in the
following document:

Voucher

Drnis, 25 July 1941

The local Ustasha camp hereby confirms that Frater Petar Berkovic, chief pastor in Drnis,
is a good and honorable Croat, has done no wrong against the interests and the Honor of
the Croatian people, but rather for 14 years fought in the Ustasha movement. . . . Until 10
April 1941, he was the Ustasha security officer for the Drnis area. On 11 April 1941, he
became the district leader for the whole county of Knin; in this function, he assumed
civilian and military authority and along with the Ustashe disarmed a whole division of
Serb soldiers. Serving the homeland!.

Camp Director

[...]

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

From an excerpt of the protocol of Frater Velimir Simic, priest from Bukovica, county of
Duvno, it can be seen that he participated in the disarming of Yugoslav soldiers and that
he thus relieved three soldiers of their weapons. In his testimony, Frater Simic declared:

Yes! in 1941, when the Yugoslav army was being dissolved, I relieved three soldiers of
their rifles. When I fled from the partisans for the first time, I gave two of the rifles to
farmers, the third I used myself or at least carried it on my person. In addition, I also had
a pistol and two hunting rifles, which I took with me to Sirok Brijeg in a package. All that
stayed in Sirok Brijeg.

The Catholic priest Ante Klaric-Tepeluk from the village Tramosnica, county of Gradacac,
was the Ustasha camp director and participated in the disarming of the Yugoslav army.
The following witnesses testified about him: Pero Dujkovic from the village [. . .], Ante
Lucie from Domaljevac, Marijan Ivkic from the village Tunc, Cedomir Marie from Gornja
Tramosnica, Mirko Cavarovic from Gornja Tramosnica, Jelena Durkovic from
Domaljevac, Ivo Zolic from Domaljevac, and Pavao Durkovic from Domaljevac.

Frater Karlo Grabovac, priest from the County of Duvno, worked during the collapse of
Yugoslavia with the Ustasha emigrants Mato Kapu-lic and Mato Boskovic on the
organization of troops, which the Yugoslav soldiers disarmed. After the founding of the
NDH, he was installed in the office of pastor as an Ustasha security official.

Frater Emanuel Rajic, priest from Gornje Vakuf, took part also in the disarming of
Yugoslav officers and soldiers and organized the Ustasha power grab in Gornji Vakuf. He
exercised the function of camp director and established the first Ustasha unit there.

Just these few examples illuminate sufficiently the role of a part of the clergy in the
disarming of the Yugoslav army, although they still give no complete impression of the
great number of priests who took part. Before the Ustashe took over the government in
Croatia, the fascist countries of Italy and Germany insisted that preparations be made as
soon as possible. Among the earliest Ustasha functionaries were a great number of
priests, who were installed as chief field-camp directors, general camp directors, and as
county and state district leaders. They all distinguished themselves already in the time of
Yugoslavia by their activity for the Ustashe, especially by disarming the Yugoslav army
during the collapse of Yugoslavia. It was logical that these people then took over the
political and civil authority.
From the protocol of Dr. Branko Stefanovic that is found in the archives

of the Commissariat for Refugees in Belgrad (V, XXXXIII, Nr. 4326), we read the
following:

In the critical days of the month of April 1941, Dragutin Marjanovic conducted police
investigations in the municipal police station from the desk of the police chief. Everyone
had the impression that the whole Ustasha authority was concentrated in Chaplain
Marjanovic. Dr. Stefanovic was present in the police station when a deputation came from
Stup Slatnic under the leadership of Martinovic and informed the head of the HSS
(Croatian Farmers Party) and the chaplain that 20 Serbs had been killed in his village.
When they informed him of this, the chaplain interrupted them: "What, only 20!"
Thereupon the messenger replied. "Don't worry, there will surely be more!" Later the
police chief Katacevic represented the chaplain in this function.

The newspaper Hrvatski Narod (1941) published an interview conducted by their


correspondent with the above-mentioned pastor Branimir Zupancic from Bosanska
Gradiska. In the article they emphasized among other things the services of the pastor for
Ustashadom and for the power grab by the Ustashe in Bosanska Gradiska:

Bosanska Gradiska also played an important role in the formation of the Independent
State of Croatia. A handful of Croatians quickly united ready to take power in such a way
that there were neither little quarrels nor great fights. The local pastor, Mr. Zupancic,
rendered special services in the maintaining of the high consciousness of our Croatian
and Moslem people. Bosanska Gradiska, this little Croatian village, thanks to the efforts
of the pastor, assembles in the Croatian home. There one planned and discussed what
was to be done.

Ivan Mikan, pastor and canon in Ogulin, organizer of the power grab of the Ustashe in
this area, on the day of the proclamation of the NDH, on 10 April 1941, prepared a
gathering at which he praised the founding of the NDH and spoke of the arrival of the
Ustashe and the German occupiers connected with them. On 13 April 1941, Pavelic
stopped by in Ogulin on the way to Zagreb. Mikan organized a festive gathering, at which
he held a speech. Among other things, he announced that "there will now be some
cleansing," and he closed with the words: "Get out of here, you dogs, beyond the Drina."
Afterwards Pavelic spoke.

The newspaper Nova Hrvatska on 1 July 1941 published an article on pastor Ivan Mikan
under the title: "The death of the iron Croat Canon, Ivan Mikan." The article says:

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

... He hardly arrives in Ogulin when Mikan continues his national-political work in the
spirit of the Ustasha. He holds meetings, councils, and discussions and administers oaths
to the Ustashe. Together with Minister Dr. Lovro Susie and Juraj Markovic, the District
Leader, he prepares the mood for the establishment of an independent Croatia.

Dragan Petranovic, chaplain from Ogulin, worked with Ivan Mikan, the district leader.
Because of his services for the Ustasha movement, he was named adjutant of the camp.

The newspaper Novi list, Nr. 34 of 1 July 1941, published the arrangement of the Ustasha
main command that allowed Frater Didak Coric to be named field camp director of the
Ustasha field camp in Jaska. The Ustasha Ante Duric, pastor from the village Divusa was
named camp director of the county Dvor on the Una, and Dragan Petranovic, catachist in
Ogulin was named adjutant of the Ustasha camp for the county of Ogulin. The same
newspaper (Nr. 44 on 12 July 1941) said that pastor Stjepan Lukic had been installed as
adjutant of the camp Zepce.

Martin Gecina, pastor from Recica, county of Karlovac, became Ustasha field camp
director of the community Recica upon the founding of the NDH.

The pastor Milivoj Cekada was the most important organizer of the Ustasha power grab in
Gornja Zenica and was therefore named district leader. Together with the Ustashe from
Zenica, he directed all the dismissals in the state offices. Dr. Dragutin Kamber, pastor
from Doboj, for his services for the Ustasha terrorists was promoted to Ustasha county
district leader for the county of Doboj. He held the whole political and civil power in his
hands, ordered the police to make searches, and appointed officials. In the name of the
Ustasha command in Doboj, he named himself chief of the Ustasha warehouse, which
previously had been in the possession of Jewish merchants, the family Pesah.

A letter from Dr. Kamber to the poglavnik:

Our dear poglavnik!

I marvel at the result of your policy in the first days of reborn Croatia so much that I
cannot express it properly. I respect the choice of your methods as especially wise and
farsighted: the strong measures in Bosnia and the naming of an Italian prince as Croatian
king. The latter, in addition to wisdom and concern for our borders, also shows to the best
friends of our state your special moral magnitude, because you decline any decoration to
adorn your person. This you did because it was for the greater benefit of the state. I thank
you for that. There are many among us who see that and understand it. May I be so bold
as to make a small suggestion: Bosnia was the last

realization of the independent Croatian state. Its queen Katharina died in Rome and left
behind as a symbolic inheritance, but still living aspiration, the Bosnian kingdom and the
crown. In this holy jubilee year, it would be good to persuade the Holy Father that he by
an official act transfer this crown again to someone and thereby connect up with the era
of King Zvonimir. Jajce was the royal city, and its romanticism, its similarity to Tivoli, its
proximity to the future center in Banja Luka would make of it even today an ideal royal
residence. . . .

Dr. Kamber

At the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia, Catholic organizations and societies played an
important role. A great many of the members of these organizations were for a long time
closely connected with the Ustasha organizations, and at the time of the occupation they
cooperated hand in hand in the disarming of the Yugoslav army and in the founding of
the Ustasha state. Catholic organizations enthusiastically welcomed the founding of the
NDH and promised Pavelic their cooperation.

The newspaper Nedjelia on 27 April 1941 (Nr. 15, p. 2) published an article with the title
"Crusaders welcome the state of Croatia and the poglavnik." In the article we find among
other things:

The Great Crusader Fraternity, through the Ustasha military priest Dr. Ivo Guberina,
Reverend Cvitanovic and Reverend Vitezic, directed the following greeting to the
poglavnik: "It is for us an indescribable joy and happiness that we are able to greet the
poglavnik before the Great Crusader Fraternity and the whole Crusader organization, our
liberator of the Croatian people, the founder and the head of the independent State of
Croatia. Our members, guided by the watchword 'Sacrifice, Eucharist and Apostolic,' have
shied from no difficulties; in the confessional they sought celestial comfort, and among
the folk they were apostles of our national shrines, to which they feel the closest
connection. Reared in the spirit of Catholic radicalism, which knows no compromises in
its principles, they also have known no yielding in the program of Croatian nationalism.
Oh poglavnik! The pilgrims welcome you and express to you their great love and
submission! ..." God lives! Prepared for the homeland!

Primary cleric: Dr. Milan Beluhan.

The newspaper Nedjelia on 18 May 1941 (Nr. 19, p. 1) published a note of thanks from the
poglavnik for the welcome from the Great Crusader Fraternity:

To the members of the Great Crusader Fraternity

Your attention and the cordial greetings on the occasion of the

90 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

establishment of the Independent State of Croatia make the poglavnik very happy, and he
is grateful from the bottom of his heart. May the Almighty bless the great deed and hear
your wishes and this for the welfare of the people and the state. . .

Other Catholic organizations also did not take a back seat to the Great Crusader
Fraternity; witness the telegrams and greetings sent to the poglavnik by the HKAD
"Domagoj". On this subject Hrvatski Narod writes (1941, Nr. 67, p. 11):

Proud of the fact that many honorable and enthusiastic strugglers for the realization of
your independent state come from the ranks of this movement, of which many were
active in the historical moments in your work of liberation and renewal, we express
boundless submission and loyalty to the state of Croatia.

Shortly after the telegram expressing greetings, which the representatives of the Great
Crusader Fraternity and the corresponding women's organization had sent to the
poglavnik, they visited the leader in order to express to him their loyalty in person and to
put themselves at his disposal. On that subject Nedjelia, the "Weekly Newspaper for
Catholic Work," wrote on 29 June 1941:

On Thursday the 29th of June at 2:30 p.m., the members of the directorship of the
Crusader organization of the sovereign independent State of Croatia visited the poglavnik
Dr. Ante Pavelic. The deputation was headed by the chief cleric of the Pilgrim
organization, Monsignore Dr. Milan Beluhan. In his accompaniment were several
Crusader clerics.

O Poglavnik!

Our chairman, Dr. Felix Niedzielski, has been in Bosnia for some time as district leader.
Allow me to greet you as second chairman of the WKB in the name of the Crusaders. We
wish to tell you, oh poglavnik, that thousands upon thousands of hands were folded and
knees bent before the face of God in prayers for the success of your struggle and the
victory of Croatia and for your imminent arrival—and finally you have come! We are
happy and proud that immediately after the first step, upon the victorious return, in the
village of Vrbovski, one of our sisters from the Crusader ladies auxiliary was permitted to
serve you. Oh Poglavnik! Croatian Crusaders, men and women, have told you of their
wishes and ambitions. They have told you how thankful they are to you, thankful until
death, and that they have no choice but to prove their gratitude with deed and work. Allow
us to greet you with our Crusader salute: "God lives!"(all attenders shout: "God lives!").
Allow us to say that we all at every moment, upon every opportunity, and

under all circumstances are prepared: for the homeland (all attenders salute with a raised
right hand and shout in full voice: "Prepared!").

Afterwards the sister Ivka Spes presented to the poglavnik an inscription, which the
poglavnik received with great satisfaction. Then he spoke and held a meaningful speech.

(Excerpt from: Documents on the Antinational Work and the Crimes of a Part of the
Catholic Clergy, edited and published by Joze Horvat and Zdenko Stambuk, Zagreb 1946,
pp. 41-53).
Notes

1. Translator's note: The territory of the NDH was divided into 22 gam, 142 counties, and
1,002 communities.

2. Translator's note: In the gaus, the Ustashe established, as a military-political


organization, staffs for the land (field camps) and for the cities (camps). Their directors
were called field-camp leaders and camp leaders.

Roman Catholic Dignitaries Welcome the Destruction of Yugoslavia and the Creation of
the NDH

The announcement of the founding of the NDH* on 10 April 1941 by "divine providence
and the will of our allies" . . . :

Oh Croatian people!

Divine providence and the will of our allies and also the tortuous, centuries-long struggle
of the Croatian people, the sacrifice of our poglavnik Dr. Ante Pavelic and the Ustasha
movement in the land and abroad have made it possible that today, one day before the
resurrection of God's son, our Independent State of Croatia is also resurrected. I call upon
all Croats, no matter where they are, and especially officers, non-commissioned officers,
and soldiers of the militia and of the security forces to hold to the strictest discipline and
to report their correct location to the commando of the militia in Zagreb. I wish that the
entire militia promptly swear allegiance to the Independent State of Croatia and its
poglavnik. Under the authority of the poglavnik, I have today taken over the total
authority and command of the militia.

God and Croatians! Prepared for the homeland!

Zagreb, 10 April 1941

♦"Independent State of Croatia," editor's note.

92

The representative of the poglavnik Commander of the entire militia: Slavko Kvaternik

Excerpt from Narodne Novine, official newspaper oftheNDH, Nr. 1, 11 April 1941

Reports from the Ustasha press of April 1941:

The Croatian archbishop sees the Ustasha Authority for Inner Security, Dr. Milovan
Zanic:

Zagreb, 12 April—Yesterday evening the Croatian archbishop, Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, visited
the Authority for Inner Security of the Croatian state, Dr. Milovan Zanic; he had a cordial
conversation with him during an extended stay.

The archbishop's best wishes for the poglavnik's deputy:

Zagreb, 12 April—The Zagreb archbishop and Croatian metropolitan, Dr. Alojzije Stepinac,
visited the deputy of the poglavnik, Mr. Slavko Kvaternik, upon which occasion he held a
long an cordial conversation, during the course of which he congratulated him on the
founding of the Independent State of Croatia.

The Croatian archbishop visits General Slavko Kvaternik:

Zagreb, 13 April—On the eleventh of this month at 12:30, the sublime gentleman, the
archbishop and Croatian archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, visited the deputy and
commander of the entire militia, General Slavko Kvaternik. The sublime one came
accompanied by the director of the chancellory of the archbishopric, Monsignore Dr.
Antun Slamic and his secretary, Dr. Fanij Seper. The Croatian archbishop brought the
deputy of the poglavnik his best wishes for the happiness, welfare, and progress of the
Croatian people in the state of Croatia. He also expressed his most cordial sympathy
regarding the tragic death of his brother. The deputy of the poglavnik assured the
Croatian archbishop that in Croatia the traditional Croatian propriety and work will reign
and that the Catholic Church will have its complete support in its efforts. The archbishop
conducted a lengthy, cordial conversation with the deputy of the poglavnik.

On the twelfth of this month at 10:30 a.m., the deputy of the poglavnik, General Slavko
Kvaternik, accompanied by Colonel Sabljak and Dr. Mladen Lorkovic, a member of the
state administration, visited the Croatian archbishop and held a lengthy, cordial
conversation with him.

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

Archbishop A. Stepinac visits the poglavnik Pavelic:

... On 10 April 1941, when in the presence of motorized German troops, Kvaternik
proclaimed the NDH in Zagreb, Ante Pavelic was in fascist Italy, in Pistoja, at the head of
a group of 240 Ushtashe.

On 15 April 1941 Pavelic and the Ustashe were brought to Zagreb and on the next day, 16
April, the archbishop Stepinac visited him. The village pastor Ivan Mikan and Chaplain
Dragan Petranovic organized a festive reception and a convocation. Pastor Mikan
welcomed Pavelic and the Ustashe, fascist Italy, and the Third Reich with enthusiasm. At
the same time he announced his purges, i.e., a sharp course regarding the Serbs: "Begone
with you dogs on the other side of the Drina!"

In one of his first speeches in Zagreb that talked about the proclamation of the NDH,
Pavelic triumphantly announced among other things: "The teachings of Anto Starcevic
were stronger than Serbia, stronger than Versailles, than England, and America, because
they ultimately won out."

From the Ustashe, the following information was published:

The archbishop Dr. Stepinac at the audience.

Zagreb, 16 April—The Zagreb archbishop and chair of the conference of bishops, the
sublime Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, Zagreb archbishop, visited the poglavnik Dr. Ante Pavelic.
The poglavnik Dr. Ante Pavelic entertained the sublime archbishop approximately 1/2
hour in cordial conversation. (DNU)

Katolicki list Nr. 16 on 21 April 1941, p. 195, says:

The sublime archbishop at the audience with the poglavnik of the state of Croatia:

On Wednesday the sixteenth of this month, the poglavnik of the state of Croatia, Dr. Ante
Pavelic, in a special audience received the Zagreb archbishop and chief shepherd of the
Croatian Church, the sublime Dr. Alojzije Stepinac.

In addition to these contributions on the political effectiveness of Archbishop Stepinac in


the early days of the NDH, another contribution from Catholic sources is of interest. The
Zagreb newspaper Nedjelia reported as follows:

The archbishop Alojzijus Stepinac visits the poglavnik and General Kvaternik.

The head of the Catholic Church in Croatia, Sublime Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, Croatian chief
shepherd and Zagreb archbishop, visited General Slavko Kvaternik, the deputy of the
poglavnik. As was reported, the archbishop

Roman Catholic Dignitaries Welcome the Destruction of Yugoslavia 95

conducted a lengthy conversation with the poglavnik and his deputy, and— as Radio
Zagreb reported—very cordial relations were established between the Catholic Church and
the state of Croatia.

The pastoral letter from archbishop Stepinac on 28 April 1941. Honorable brothers!

There is no one among you who in recent times has not been witness to the important
events in the life of the Croatian people, in which we as messengers of Christ's gospel
have been active. Those are events that have brought the people closer to the long
dreamed and desired ideal. Those are moments in which the tongue no longer speaks but
rather the blood in its clandestine unity with the earth in which we have seen the light of
God and with the people from which we have come. Is it necessary to mention that the
blood flows faster in our veins, that the heart beats faster in our breast? No one who is
wise can judge it, no one who is honest can contest it, because the love for one's own
people is written in the human being with the finger of God and is a command from God.!
And who can chastise us when we as spiritual leaders contribute our part to the joy and
the enthusiasm of the people, when we full of deep emotion and warm gratitude turn to
the divine majesty. For as confused as today's fateful events may be, as varying as the
factors may be that have influence on the course of events, one can nevertheless see the
working of the divine hand. "A domino factum est istud et est mirabile in oculis
nostris."—God has done that and our eyes are full of wonder (Psalm 117, Verse 2,3).

As I speak to you today in the shadow of this ancient temple, this silent witness to our
Croatian past, I speak not only as the son of the Croatian people but more as a leader of
that divine institution that was born from the lap of eternity and which will find its end in
eternity—in the quite special meaning of the word. As representative of that church that is
a "firmamentum et columna Veritas"—the pillar and fortress of truth (1st Timothy 3,
Verse 15) and which is not afraid even through my mouth to speak the truth where it was
necessary, although its voice has often been a voice of "one crying in the wilderness"
(John I, Verse 23).

As I speak to you as the leader of the Church and shepherd of souls, I ask and admonish
you that you exert all effort and work for the goal of making our Croatia a land of God,
because only thus will it be able to fulfill two essential tasks that it as a state must fulfill
for the benefit of its members. In loyalty to God and to the church of Christ, our Croatia
will fulfill that lofty mission that the earthly homeland must fulfill through the furthering
of supernatural goodness of everyone. In loyalty to God and to the Church it will show
that it believes that the ultimate goal of all human struggle is the beyond, where our
home is. By protecting religious and moral values, Croatia will show its belief in the fact
that the earthly home is a true mother only when it teaches us to fold our hands and "give
to God

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

what is God's" and that it is a proper care-giver in our lives only when it directs our steps
on pathways that lead upward and when it shelters our souls from errors, which God
actually created.

But loyal to God and the Church, our Croatia will fulfill not only its duty in the furthering
of the supernatural goodness of the Croatian people, but thus it will lay the most solid
foundation for a healthy development of earthly national values and this for state
freedom and solidarity. The Church, which for two thousand years has been observing the
seething in world history, has for centuries been witness to how the "Regnun de gente in
gentem transfetur propter injustitas et injurias et contumelias et diversos dobs'—how
kingdoms transfer from one people to another because of injustice and unfairness and
because of infamy and various afflictions (Chron. 10, Verse 8). Therefore we must see it
as our greatest duty to inspire the Croatian people in these fateful moments of history by
a deep look into the eternity of our whole national being. We must everywhere draw
attention to and teach the fact that the holy enthusiasm and the noble inspiration in the
construction of the foundation of this young state of Croatia must be inspired by a fear of
God and a love for the law of God and his commandments, because only upon the law of
God and not on the mendacious principles of this world can the Croatian state be built
with a solid foundation.

Therefore, follow willingly any call to participate in the exalted work for the preservation
and furthering of the Independent State of Croatia. Since we know the men who today
have the fate of the Croatian people in their hand, we are firmly convinced that our work
will find full understanding and support. We believe and expect that the Church in the
newly established state of Croatia will be able to announce in full freedom the
incontestable principles of eternal truth. It will keep to the Biblical word: "Verbum Dei
non est alligatum"—the word of God is not fettered (II Timothy 2, Verse 9). The Church,
too, will see it as its holy duty, "opportune, importune, arguere, increpare, obsecrare in
omni patientia et doctrina et cum omni apostolica libertate"—in season and out of season
to convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching (II Timothy 4,
Verse 2). Thus it will work and that will be seen as an invaluable aid in the difficult work
of the construction of our dear homeland and of the state of Croatia. May the dear Lord
grant that it be so. And so that it will be so, I admonish you, honorable priests, to not stop
to inspire your faithful to pray, but even more, to yourselves at the altar of God raise your
hands to the "Father of the stars, from whom comes all good gifts and every perfect gift"
(James I, Verse 17), so that the poglavnik of the NDH will be filled with the spirit of truth
in order to be able to exercise the exalted and so responsible service in praise of God and
to the people for their salvation in truth and justice: so that the Croatian people might be
a people of God, submissive to Christ and his Church, which is built on the rock Peter!
When, as may happen, prayer appears superfluous in the eyes of the world, may we
perceive it as the most important thing in life, for when

the Lord "fails to protect the city, then he who protects it, watches in vain" (Psalm 12
Verse 1.)

The church of God has never lost itself in phrases and has never failed in that continuous
work with which the foundations of a happy future for the individual, the people, and the
state are laid. Show this, worthy brothers, even now and fulfill the duty to the young and
independent state of Croatia!

In this regard, I resolve that on Sunday, 4 May of this year, in all the parish churches a
holy Te Deum will be held, to which the parish, local authorities, and the faithful people
shall be invited. I hope that the above-mentioned festivities can be held at this time.
Should the brevity of time not allow it, then the next holiday will be reserved for it. As far
as the Zagreb cathedral is concerned, I will determine the day in consultation with the
state authorities.
Zagreb, 28 April 1941

Archbishop Alojzije

Archbishop Saric revealed all his Ustasha sentiments in the song that he dedicated to
Pavelic on Christmas 1941. This song was published by almost all the Ustasha newspapers
in Zagreb and in Sarajevo, and it was instituted as a special propaganda tool among the
population of Zagreb and also in the various activities in schools. Thus with his literary
ebullience this ecclesiastical dignitary achieved a wider range of effectiveness for the
Ustasha than would have been possible with a political speech, and this among the
priesthood as well as among the faithful. In the Zagreb paper Hrvatski Narod this ode by
Saric was published on the title page along with a picture of the poglavnik and his
"Thoughts at Christmas Time." Both the works of the poglavnik and the poem by Saric
form an inseparable and concurring unit in the sense of the Ustasha thought pool. Even
Pavelic referred to divine providence that directed his work in exile up to the founding of
the NDH, and in the same sense his Upper Bosnian Ustasha archbishop writes:

Dedicated to the Poglavnik

The Leader. "For the homeland!" All Croatians. "Prepared!"

The poet saw you in the holy city in Saint Peter's basilica. His presence was as dear to him
as is our homeland.

God himself, the almighty, be with you, so that you accomplish the sublime deed;

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

May Ante Starcevic illumine you, may he be your model!

You are both the idol of the Croatians, you defend the ancient sacred rights. The sun
beams with you, our noble ones. Eternal fame to you!

You are totally dedicated to the homeland, you live from the faith, you hero, bold warrior.
You stand up for freedom of the homeland, divine Ustasha.

Our good spirit, our deep myth,

the wolves cry in vain from all around,

Your call, Prophet, resounds through mountain and Valley:

"God be with the Croats!"

"God the Lord, our only God, our protector, our resurrection." With these words you went
into the Easter morning dawn.
He has heart, this man, and honor,

he who does not reign, but works without thought to himself, and never bends, he who is
a guiding star to us.

Every day is a sacrifice and noble work, Your pure light guides us, our star! Your strength
vanquishes all the dwarfs, You new Zrinjski.

Truth and justice are elevated by your speeches, more dear than even your mother is
freedom to you; you stand up for them against all the thieves, like a giant.

Against the greedy Jews with all their money, who wanted to sell our souls, betray our
names, those miserable ones.

You are the rock on which rests homeland and freedom in one. Protect our lives from
hell, from Marxism and Bolshevism.

You call us Croats for our homeland: "Be like the rock,

Roman Catholic Dignitaries Welcome the Destruction of Yugoslavia 99 be prepared!"

The flame of fame will light our way, holy Croatian homeland!

Like the sun, you warm us,

you lead Zagreb to the heart of the Croatian king,

you love Bosnia, you call it the jewel

of the crown of Croatia.

Day and night tirelessly for the people, a true Croat is so dear to you, your heart warms
him like the sun, oh hero of the Ustashe!

A cry from the heart flies to heaven:

"Protect our homeland, the beautiful one, oh Lord!"

It is the only concern for you forever,

for it alone you pray.

Thus you call us all united to the dance of work, of progress, of honor. In this dance it is
alive, our beloved Croatia.
Tolerating the worst travails for the movement, surrounded by soul-robbing thieves, you
strode like David into foreign lands, protected by God.

The Lord sent you solace abroad; adorned your faith with laurel, never will it wither,
happy hero!

Today our banner waves under the sky,

our eyes cry tears of joy,

Your cheerful brow

adorns the city and the land like a kiss.

Who could move our hearts until today! Raise our hearts to the heaven of the Lord, oh
leader, the Croatian people need you like bread.

For the homeland we will always be prepared, For it we will work, strive for it, always
prepared; for the homeland ever with burning zeal, with God, for the beloved homeland!

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

Dr. Ante Pavelic. Dear name. Croatia has in him a treasure in heaven.

May the heavenly king accompany you forever, our beloved leader!

So according to Saric, Pavelic performed a holy deed, and God was his companion so that
he was able to carry out this holy deed, or as the case may be, this the greatest betrayal
since the origin of the Croatian people. For him Pavelic is a "divine Ustasha," "our guiding
star," "the Zriniski" [medieval Croatian ruler, translator's note], "for, the freedom of
Croatia, Pavelic has stood up against the thieves," i.e., against the Serbs and against the
Jews, who accused the Croatian people of betrayal, i.e., against Yugoslavia. Ante Pavelic
protects the life of the Croats from "hell, from Marxism, from Bolshevism." This Ustasha
propagandist elevated himself in this poem over all other Ustasha poets who likewise
glorified Pavelic for his holy deed, to which they surely added all assaults, all victims who
had challenged his bombs in the assaults on the Yugoslav railway in the years 1933 to
1937, and surely also those victims who met their death at the hands of the Ustasha in the
disarming of the Yugoslav army during its collapse in April 1941. For these reasons, Ante
Pavelic was for Saric also the "beloved leader," who was as necessary to the Croatian
people as "bread."

Roman Catholic Dignitaries Welcome the Destruction of Yugoslavia

VRHBOSN
^ KATOLICKOj AKCIJI ^

Kadi sance sia*»«

Facsimile of the ode of Archbishop Saric to Pavelic, published in Katolicki tjednik.

Decorations for Roman Catholic Priests for Meritorious Service to the Ustasha State

Innumerable ritual masses were held in honor of Pavelic, his state, and the Ustasha army.
Flags of individual Ustasha units were blessed, who went to battle against the People's
Liberation Army or to the eastern front. Newly opened Ustasha field camps and posts
were consecrated. The priests took part in the burials of even the greatest Ustasha
murderers, while they at the same time declined to be at the burials of those who had
fallen in the name of freedom.

Hundreds of priests especially distinguished themselves in their criminal service to the


Ustasha and to the occupiers and were decorated with high Ustasha medals for it:

Aksamovic, Dr. Antun, Bishop from Dakova


Distinguished Service Medal, highest order with star Andrasec, Alfons, Franciscan abbot
of the cloister Varazdin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Andelovic, Frater Anddel, Pastor from Kralj,
Sutjeska

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Arbulic, Miho, Pastor from Mandaljen

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Astalos, Josip, Pastor from Osijek

Decorated with the Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class

103

104 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

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Facsimile of the document with which Pavelic honored the nun Separovic for her "brave
and unflinching position" regarding the partisans.

Bajic, O. Leonard, Franciscan priest from Makarsk

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Baltic, Frater Viktor, Pastor from Ljubuncic

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd class Bandic, Drago, Pastor from Prnjavor

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Barbaric, Dr. Mladen, Religion instructor at the
high school in Mostar
Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir Barbir, Frater Franjo, Franciscan instructor at the
Franziscan high school in Dubrovnik

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Baverlin, Stjepan, Religion instructor from Dakovo

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Beluhan, Dr. Milan, Pastor of the St. Mary's Church
in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Blazevic, Grga, Pastor from Bosanski Novi

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Bonefacic, Dr. Kvirin, Bishop from Makarska and
Split

Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star Borosa, Vladimir, Pastor from
Lobor

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Brisevac, Frater Dane, Pastor from Stratinska

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Buckovic, Stjepan, Pastor from Gornji Bogicevci

Order of the Crown of King Avonimir Buric, Dr. Viktor, Bishop from Senj

Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star Butorac, Ivan, Canon from
Mrkopolje

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Butorac, Pavle, Bishop of the county bishopric
Dubrovnik

Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star Buzuk, Frater Miroslav, Pastor from
Lasin

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Calusic, Frater Marko, Pastor from the village
Sivsa, County Tesanj

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd class Cipcic, Milan, Pastor from Davor

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Cork, Frater Dominik, Pastor from Tomislavgrad

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd class Cuckovic, Ivo, Pastor from Slan

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class

106 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

Cule, Dr. Petar, Bishop from Mostar


Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star. Culina, Cvitan, Priest from Usd

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Cvekon, O. Paskal, Religion instructor in Varazdin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Debeljak, Msgr. Ignacije, House prelate of the Holy
Father in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Delic, Don Niko, Prebendary and dean from
Makarska

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Depolo, Bozo, Religion instructor from Korcula

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Despalj, Don Jure, Priest and pastor from Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Dobuk, Mato, Pastor from Dubrovnik

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Dockal, Dr. Kamilo, Prebendary and prelate of the
Holy Father in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Draganovic, Dr. Krunoslav, Priest on the religion
faculty in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Fajdetic, Joisip, Religion instructor from Kompolje

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Felicanovic, Don Jozo, Prebendary from Pag

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Garic, Jozo, Bishop from Banja Luka

Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star Glavas, Pero, Chaplain from
Ludbreg

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Glazar, Mato, Prebendary from Senj

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Gospodnetic, Juraj, Pastor from Bosansko Grahovo

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir Grebenarevic, Frater Bona, Pastor from Podhum

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Guncevic, Dr. Josip, Priest and Director in the high
school in Brod on the Sava

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 3rd class Hajdukovic, Filip, Beneficiary and
honorary prebendary from Bjelovar

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class.

Hrvat, Frater Ante, Cloister administrator and pastor at the Franciscan cloister
Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Ilovaca, V. Mile, Franciscan professor, custodian of
the museum in Banja Luka Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Ivan, Pater Ignaije,
Priest of the order in the Franciscan cloister on the island of Trsat Distinguished Service
Medal 3rd class Jelicic, Dr. Frater Vitomir, Full professor and dean on the Roman
Catholic religion faculty in Sarajevo Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Juric, Frater
Ante, Pastor in Sokolina

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Juricic, Ivo, Pastor from Klisevo

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Kalajdzic, Josip, Religion instructor from Varazdin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Kapurso, Karl, Secretary of the bishop chancellery

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Klaric, Mate, Priest from Sarajevo, Secretary at the
Croatian State Museum

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Kovacic, Petar, Pastor of the Parish of the Holy
Family

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Krcmar, Ferdo, Pastor and dean in Lepoglava

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Krecak, Gjuro, Pastor from Dubrovnik

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Kresir, Martin, Pastor of the parish Rotimlje

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Krist, O. Jakov, Priest in Osijek

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Kukina, O. Eugen, Cloister administrator in Trsten

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Lepes, Danijel, Prebendary from Trsten

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Loncaric, Dr. Ante, Pastor of the Church of St.
Petar in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class with star Loncaric, Dr. Josip, Pastor of the Parish of
St. Peter in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY

Majic, Andrija, Pastor and consultant to the bishop of Mostar

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Majic, Mijo, Pastor in Mostar

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Maretic, Ferdo, Pastor in Stara Gradiska
Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Markovic, Dr. Tomo, Priest in Sarajevo

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Maslac, Duro, Pastor in Ravna

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Mask, Nikola, Priest and director at the state
Education Facility in Gospic

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Matosic, Franjo, Pastor and honorary canon in
Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Micevic, Stjepan, Priest from Nova Gradiska

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Mihelcic, Msgr. Ivan, Pastor from Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Mileta, Dr. Jerolim, Bishop in Sibenik

Distinguished Service Medal, highest medal with star Miletic, Ivan, Pastor

Order of the Crown of the King 1st class Misilo, Krunoslav, Franciscan instructor, Father
Superior of the Bosna Srebena

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Mitrovic, Aco, Pastor from Petrijevac

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Nakic, O. Dr. Vjenceslav, Cloister administrator of
the Cloister of St. Ante in Knin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Nestor, Maks Valdemar, Pastor in Drvar

Medal of the Crown of King Zvonimir with swords. Novak, O. Alojzije, Capucine abbot in
Varazdin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Petkovic, Ivo, Pastor from Sar (Island of Korcula)

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Petrovic, Dr. Leon, Franciscan and Father Superior
of the Franciscans from Hercegovina

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Polk, Mato, Pastor and prebendary in Bakar

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class

Prepunic, Marijan, Religion instructor from Osijek

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Prezigalo, Josip, Pastor from Mihovljana

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Prgomet, Stjepan, Pastor in Travnik


Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Prostenik, Msgr. Matija, Apostolic protonotary

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Purk, Msgr. Gerhard, Dean and pastor in Windhorst

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class with star Pusic, Danijel, Priest from Sarajevo

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Pusic, Miho, Croatian bishop

Highest order for meritorious service with star Racki, Dr. Franjo, Pastor and field camp
director in Hrvatska-Mitrovica

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Radonic, Dr. Frater Bona, Instructor at the priests'
seminar

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Rogosic, Dr. Frater Roko, Pastor from Banjevci

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Silov, Krano, Pastor from Lopud

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Slibar, O. Augustin, Cloister administrator of the
Cloister in Nasice

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Soldo, Frater Tugomir, Chaplain from Kocerin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Srebrncic, Dr. Josip, Bishop from Krck on the
island Krk

Highest order with star Stankovic, Ivan, Pastor from Vrbovac near Ozalj

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Starcevic, Grga, honorary prebendary, dean and
Pastor from Otocac

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Saric, Dr. Ivan, Archbishop from Sarajevo

Distinguished Service Medal, highest order with star Seb, Jakov, Priest and director of the
state high school in Osijek

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Sebvic, Don Kerubin, Pastor from Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Seremet, Frater Ante, Priest from Sanski Most

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Simovic, Frater Pavao, Pastor

Bronze medal for bravery

110 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK AGAINST ORTHODOXY


Simrak, Dr. Janko, Greek Catholic bishop

Distinguished Service Medal, highest order with star Skrinjar, Pater Salezije, Priest of the
order in the Franciscan cloister on the island Trsat

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Sojat, Josip, Religion instructor at the state high
school in Ogulin

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class. Sole, O. Sidonije, Religion instructor in Virovitica

Order of the Crown of the King 1st class Sporer, Ladislav, former pastor in Delnice

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Sveder, Rudolf, Prebendary from Dakovo

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Taljeran, Miro, Religion instructor in Dubrovnik

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Tkalcec, O. Kalasancije, Cloister administrator


from Varadin

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Tomasev, Stipe, Pastor from Oslje

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Topic, O. Petar, Franciscan and instructor at the
high school of Knin

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class. Trbuha, Peter, Pastor of the parish of St. John in
Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Valic, Rikard, Pastor in Ogulin

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Varnaca, Bruno, Pastor from the former brigade of
Kosinj

Bronze medal for bravery Vlahov, O. Ambrozije, Priest of the order in Zagreb

Distinguished Service Medal 1st class Vukina, Ivan, Pastor from Vinagora

Distinguished Service Medal 3rd class Weiss, Rikard, Chaplain in Modrici

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir with swords 2nd class Zimmerman, Dr. Stjepan, full
professor on the Roman Catholic theological faculty in Zagreb

Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 1st class with star Zirdum, Ivan, Pastor from Boca,
County Brcko

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Zlatolas, Josip, Religion instructor from Zagreb
Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class Zovko, Marko, Pastor of the parish in Stolac

Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class

Zubic, O. Silvestar, Religion instructor Distinguished Service Medal 2nd class

{Documents on the Antinational Work and Crimes of a Portion of the Catholic Clergy, pp.
181-185, 190, 194-199.)

[. . . ]

Pope Pius XIPs Special Attention to Pavelic and the Ustasha State

From the first days of the Ustasha NDH to the end of the war, i.e., for four years, the
Vatican and especially the pope showed their great prejudice for the Ustasha state.

The following interesting detail shows how Pope Pius XII felt personally in regard to the
Ustasha state, which he purportedly never recognized: The Osservatore Romano reported
that on 22 July 1941, i.e., three months after the occupation and the establishment of the
NDH, a hundred Croatian security police were received by the pope. This is comparable to
being an indirect recognition of the Ustasha puppet state by the official Vatican organ and
the pope. This news was also distributed by the fascist news agencies Stefani and DNB.
The report by the DNB says:

Today, Wednesday (22 July 1941) his Holiness the Pope received along with newlyweds,
Italian war victims, and Italian wounded, also one hundred Croatian security police, who
were in Rome as guests of the Carabinieri.

These hundred Croatian security police were not innocent street-corner police, traffic
cops, or any such thing. They are the elite of the Ustasha butchers. These are the hundred
chosen criminals who under the personal direction of Eugen Kvaternik-Dido, the blood-
stained chief of the Ustasha police, were in Italy for training. Among them was also the
infamous Pecnikar. Kvaternik and Pecnikar, at the head of their criminal delegation,
received the papal blessing. Just shortly before this they had carried out

112

Pope Pius XII's Special Attention to Paveli'c and the Ustasha State

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114 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

massacres in Croatia with their gang. Once they were back in Croatia from their
Carabinieri training and freshly blessed, they continued with their even more terrible
"purges," This group of a hundred so-called security police was the nucleus of the Ustasha
police, the "UNSA." They were the certified trainers of the butchers in the camps. In this
case, too, Pope Pius XII had proven himself as unscrupulous in regard to his official
neutral position. Later he once again blessed uniformed Ustashe, this time those Ustasha
police on which he had already received horrifying information. But even as the pope was
blessing Kvaternik-Dido, he was already in possession of several reports on this criminal,
which were directed to him, the pope, and in which Kvaternik was mentioned by name.
But Pius XII did not deny the bandit his "paternal blessing."

[...]

The nature of the Vatican's attitude toward the NDH becomes clear, among other things,
from the fact that the pope named the Zagreb archbishop Stepinac as military vicar of the
Pavelic-Ustasha army. For in doing so he expressed a de facto recognition of the NDH—he
did not risk a de jure recognition at this time yet, in order to maintain an appearance of
neutrality— and out of tactical considerations, simultaneously entertained diplomatic
relations with Yugoslavia.
The above evidence shows that Pius XII had a special preference for Pavelic. This is also
clear from a letter that Nikola Rusinovic, the "specially empowered" official of the
Ustasha in the Vatican, wrote to the Ustasha foreign minister Mladen Lofkovic on 27
April 1942:

I request that you inform the poglavnik that I have thanked the Holy Father through
Maglione for the rosaries that he had sent to the poglavnik through Lobkowicz [Prince
Erwin Lobkowicz, the successor to Rusinovic in Rome; author's note]. The cardinal was
very happy about this and told me that he would gladly report it to the Holy Father.

Thus one sees that Pope Pius XII used every opportunity to show his "paternal affection"
to the poglavnik, although he did not recognize the NDH "de jure." He let him know
through "little signs" that he was thinking of him and he reinforced him through his
support in the hope of one day receiving the de jure recognition.

In a letter of 4 February 1942, Rusinovic reported to Lorkovic on his visits with the
Vatican secretaries Montini and Tardini. About Montini he wrote: "That is an important
confidant of the Holy Father and the only member of the Roman Curia who reports to the
Holy Father personally

twice a day, morning and evening. ... At the Holy See, one says that Montini directs the
Vatican." Montini explained to Rusinovic, "that the Holy Father loves the Croats [the
Ustasha! Author's note] very much and is personally prepared to help us." Rusinovic
writes further that Montini said upon leaving: "The Holy Father will help you. Be sure of
that."

On 12 March 1942, the Ustasha-empowered Rusinovic, on the occasion of the anniversary


of the crowning of Pope Pius XII, sent a telegram to the Vatican state secretary: "Upon the
occasion of the third anniversary of the coronation, I ask His Excellency to give my
cordial greetings to the Holy Father." In the answer we read: "The Holy Father thanks you
for the greetings. He sends the apostolic blessing." Although the NDH was not yet
recognized "de jure," telegrams were exchanged in accordance with diplomatic ceremony.

At the coronation festivities, Pavelic also congratulated the pope. Rusinovic informed
Lorkovic of this in a letter of 20 March 1942 as follows:

The Osservatore Romano brings the news that among the personages who congratulated
the Holy Father was also Ante Pavelic, the Croatian head of state. That is, of course, only a
little bit of news, but still of such importance that still on the same afternoon Nuncio
Felici 1 sought me out and asked whether the news pleased me and how I interpreted it.
He said that for anyone who knows Vatican politics, this was a kind of recognition of the
NDH.

Later Pavelic and the pope frequently exchanged cordial telegrams. On New Year's Day
1943, Pavelic sent the pope a telegram, which the pope replied to with a blessing:

Everything that you have expressed so warmly in your name and in the name of the
Croatian Catholics we return gratefully and give you and the whole Croatian people our
apostolic blessing.

(Katolicki list, Nr. 3, 1943)

The telegrams from Pavelic to the pope were usually written in the same style as the
message that he sent on 20 March 1944 on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the
coronation of Pius:

To His Holiness Pius XII., Vatican.—The Croatian people, who are again suffering a
difficult struggle for the honor of the cross and for freedom while following the glorious
example of their forefathers, in unity with their poglavnik, are honored to wish God's best
for the fifth anniversary of Your blessed reign, Your Holiness and Father of all
Christianity, to whose throne the peoples of the earth direct their eyes as to the heights
from which salvation shall come for all, and wish for themselves the paternal blessing.
Ante Pavelic.

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

The pope replied:

The wishes that you and the Croatian people sent us at the conclusion of the fifth year of
Our pontificate are very dear to Us. We will ask God's blessing for you.

The pope apparently had no fear of associating with the Ustasha regime. With this
telegram he let Pavelic know that he, even if he could not recognize him "de jure," still
asked God's blessing for him. He also wanted to impress the masses in Croatia. He was
trying to commend them to Ustashadom as much as possible. By openly showing
solidarity with Pavelic, he was intending to show the way to the Catholic faithful in
Croatia.

The telegrams from Pavelic to the pope were in no way viewed in the Vatican as worthless
and obtrusive. Cardinal Montini assured Lobkowicz explicitly that the pope was happy
with them:

In the end, he added that the Holy Father was delighted with the telegram from the
poglavnik on the occasion of the anniversary of the coronation.

(Letter to Lorkovic, 14 April 1943)

On 5 June 1943, the pope's name day, Pavelic sent him greetings and "expressed his
devotion." The pope replied cordially by asking God's blessing "for the entire Croatian
people."

All these telegrams were read from the pulpits and published in Church organs as well as
elsewhere. Archbishop Stepinac commanded the priesthood to announce the papal
blessing that he had received from the pope during his stay in Rome in May 1943. At that
time, Stepinac had brought Pius a memorandum in which he asked him to intervene on
the behalf of the Ustasha-NDH so that it would be able to continue after the war.

On another occasion, Pavelic sent a telegram to the pope in which he expressed his
indignation that the American air force had bombed Rome.

In his answer, the pope wished him and the Ustasha God's favor and sent him his own
blessing. The relationship between Pius XII and Pavelic's Ustasha regime is clear also in a
very interesting passage in the correspondence between Lorkovic and Prince Erwin
Lobkowicz, the successor to Rusinovic in the position of the authority in the Vatican. In a
letter of 10 October 1942, Lobkowicz writes:

The visit with the Holy Father: On 22 October I finally received an invitation to come to
the Vatican in uniform. I was to be picked up by the Vatican vehicle so that I could
exercise any assigned duty as chamberlain; then the audience was to follow. The Holy
Father received me as usual with extra-

ordinary good wishes and emphasized with an understanding smile that he was receiving
me as his secret chamberlain. He said he hoped that this would soon change. I informed
the Holy Father about the situation in Croatia, for which he showed a great, well intended
interest and understanding.

The fact that Pavelic dropped Dr. Rusinovic and chose Prince Lobkowicz as go-between
for the Vatican is of great significance. Lobkowicz was neither of Croatian nationality nor
did he have a command of the Croatian language, and whenever he wrote a letter himself,
it was only in German. His secretary formulated the Croatian reports. Pavelic had chosen
him upon the expressed suggestion of the Vatican. Lobkowicz had already formerly been
"Privy Chamberlain," had Vatican experience, and could move in those circles more easily
than any other Ustasha without connections and Vatican grooming. The pope could
receive him and converse with him without concern for diplomatic formalities, as with his
"Privy Chamberlain."

The pope thus listened with "great, well intended interest and understanding" to whatever
Lobkowicz told him about the Ustasha state. He did not criticize the Ustasha, but instead
he "understood" them. He also had an "understanding" for Lobkowicz's special position.
He received him as a chamberlain and indicated to him that he would soon receive him as
a regular diplomatic representative of the Ustasha-NDH. In his letter of 20 December
1942 to Lorkovic, Lobkowicz again brought up the subject of the audience with Pope Pius
XII. He wrote:
(Cardinal) Montini asked me whether I was satisfied with my last audience with the Holy
Father (which was the subject of the last report). From this question I could conclude
that Montini himself had been the "arranger" of the above-mentioned audience. He was
very happy when I told him that I was very satisfied as was also the poglavnik, to whom I
had reported.

So everyone was satisfied—the pope, Cardinal Montini, Pavelic, and Lobkowicz. There was
no reason for dissatisfaction; everything was completely in order, a regular idyll!

The pope's relationship to the Ustasha-NDH in general and specifically his position on
Lobkowicz's mission is evident from the letter from Lobkowicz to Lorkovic on 14 April
1943, in which he writes about another audience:

Official appearances. Because of my position as an "unrecognized" diplomatic


representative, it is not possible for me to appear along with the other diplomats in the
various festivities. In order to compensate for this somehow and to avoid the impression
of isolation of the Croatian representative, I am invited

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

to perform service as Privy Chamberlain at important festivities at which the diplomatic


corps is present. I was thus present, for example, in papal accompaniment at the
celebration of the anniversary of the coronation on 17 March at the procession of the
Pope into the basilica of Saint Peter, and at the fast on Sunday, 11 April. When the Holy
Father took leave from the attenders at the end of this festival, he approached me—
contrary to all ceremonial custom—and said: "I am aware of this special significance of
your presence here; have my special blessing." By this extraordinary kindness, the pope
obviously wanted to impart a special honor to Croatia.

This text makes perfectly clear the tricks that the Vatican and even Pius XII himself had
at their disposal in order to preserve the formal "neutrality'' and at the same time to
support the Ustasha state. The function of this chamberlain allowed Pavelic's ambassador
to stay close to the pope, to whom he was thus closer than the other diplomats. Thus he
was able to receive Pius's "special" blessing for the Ustasha state, which was so dear to
him.

Pius XII, who—as we have already seen—by the granting of audiences and by the blessing
of uniformed Ustasha troops and even of Ustasha camp police was clearly magnanimous,
several times received various Ustasha formations. In a letter to Lorkovic, Lobkowicz
writes on 20 December 1942:

The audience of the female functionaries of the Ustasha youth with the Holy Father is
likewise worth mentioning. It was the first audience that this office arranged. Up until
now, that was the concern and duty—via facti—of the rector of the institute of Saint
Hieronymus. The audience was set for a quite unusual time, when the Holy Father
normally was not accustomed to receiving groups, but individuals who come in more or
less utilitarian matters. The Ustasha functionaries were introduced by Monsignore
Madjerac. The audience ran according to usual ceremony, and at the end the Holy Father
cried out in the Croatian language: "Long live the Croats." At the end of February of this
year, he did not do this at the audience of a group from the Croatian colony in Rome. If
one notes that in the Vatican all actions and the most detailed words are thought out in
advance, we can see in this a little progress. We can also call special attention to the fact
that the "Osservatore Romano" registered this audience while heretofore it has not
mentioned any Croatian audience.

Upon seeing a group of uniformed Ustasha lady functionaries, i.e., a military formation of
one of the parties involved in war, Pius XII was so enthusiastic that he shouted in
Croatian and broke with all past customs. The pope emphasized repeatedly that Pavelic's
NDH was very dear to him and that it should "long live," i.e., it should continue. The pope
received the Ustasha

lady functionaries at an unusual time, when usually only individuals were admitted who
came in utilitarian matters. Lobkowicz maintained that even the Osservatore Romano
had published the customary report and mentioned this audience in order to emphasize
it. We, however, have seen that the Vatican organ had previously published similar
events. Lobkowicz's remark is thus not completely correct.

Pius XII often proved his personal inclination toward Ustashadom and for the Ustasha
military formations. In the report from Lobkowicz to Lorkovic of 9 February 1943, there is
among other things the following interesting segment:

The Serb dominion over the Croats could in no way be seen as a legal government, against
which a rebellion would have been forbidden. The Yugoslav state itself is not a legal
configuration. ... It is clear that against such a dominion an armed rebellion is allowable.
We have a classical proof of this in Franco's rebellion against the government of the
People's Front. Although the Spanish government developed from proper elections and
according to democratic sociologists was a legal government, the Catholic Church saw
Franco's rebellion not only as allowed but in a certain regard saw it as her own concern.
The offcial Spanish hierarchy with its well known letter directed to all bishops of the
Catholic world was in complete solidarity with the rebellion, while the Vatican itself, the
head of the Church, made it known in every way possible that it approved of Franco's
rebellion and even publicly exposed that small number of Catholic faithful who
sympathized with the Spanish People's Front. So when Franco's rebellion against a
democratic, legal government was allowed according to Catholic principals, although it
caused a sea of blood, why should the rebellion of the Catholic Ustasha movement against
Belgrade not be allowed? All the more so since Belgrade in its program along with the
destruction of the Croatian people planned the destruction of their historical mission, i.e.,
the destruction of Catholicism.
That is the most convincing presentation of the friendly relationships between the pope
and Pavelic's movement and his support of this movement. It is the justification of the
role that the Catholic Church played in Yugoslavia with the goal of encouraging all
indecisive Catholic priests and all the faithful who were shy of the bloody Ustasha to
enter into the Ustasha movement without fear and to follow their directives and to work
for their criminal purposes. Especially significant are those arguments that justify the
Ustasha's bloodletting and compare it to the blood baths that Franco caused in Spain. The
Vatican sanctioned that and wished it. The Vatican betrayed those priests and faithful
followers who were against bloodshed in Yugoslavia— logically.

The religious intolerance took on extreme forms. No wonder: after

120 PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

all the head of the Croatian clergy was its promoter. The Zagreb archbishop Dr. Aloijzije
Stepinac played an important role in this. It is worth illustrating precisely his position
with documents, i.e., with his diary, which he kept during his time as bishop. It consists of
five volumes.

In the first volume (pp. 2 and 3, 4 July 1934) Stepinac describes his stay in Belgrade on
the occasion of the oath to King Alexander that he underwent upon being named
archbishop coadjutor. On this occasion, he visited all the Catholic parishes in Belgrade
and drew this conclusion: "If freedom were greater and there were sufficient workers [i.e.,
priests, editor's note], Serbia would be Catholic in 20 years." One sees that this high
prelate was also dreaming of an expansion of papal dominion in the Balkan.

Stepinac's note on 12 October 1939 (volume III, p. 365) after a conversation with Macek is
also significant:

You can see everywhere that we still have a lot of work to do with Belgrade, and because
of their (i.e., the Serbs') dishonesty, one need not be surprised if someday there is a final
break between the Croats and the Serbs. It is sad, but everything points to the correctness
of the proverb that says that you can trust the Wallachs no more than you can measure
the sea.

On 27 March 1941, a putsch against the government of Cvetkovic-Macek was carried out
in Belgrade, which had made the three-way pact with Hitler and Mussolini and had also
committed Yugoslavia to the Nazi-fascist war plan. The people rose against it and the
people's revolution began. The Catholic Church, however, which along with Nazi fascism
had its own plans for the destruction of Yugoslavia in a "peaceful" manner, did not
approve this! For this reason, Stepinac wrote in his diary on 27 March 1941 (volume IV,
pp. 172 f.):

But in all that (i.e., in the attack on the state) it is again clear that Serbia and Croatia are
two different worlds who will never agree as long as both exist. The spirit of Byzantinism
is so terrible that only the almighty and all-knowing God is in a position to fend off the
intrigues and deceptions of these people. For us it is somewhat incomprehensible that
contracts and obligations are broken without any sort of scruples.

This anti-Serbian hatred for religious reasons also appears in the above-mentioned report
from Lobkowicz to Lorkovic:

... On Sunday, 31 January, I was received along with my family by the Holy Father in a
special audience that lasted a half hour. The pope was decidedly friendly and expressed
his joy over the letter sent to him by our

poglavnik and which I had delivered according to the protocol of the cardinal, the state
secretary, along with the Latin translation of the Ustasha principles. This indication of
attentiveness pleased the Holy Father apparently very much. He was especially interested
in the work of our Ustasha youth, about which my oldest daughter gave him various
information. ... In the later conversation, the Holy Father told me he regretted that it was
not generally known who the most important, sole, and real enemy of Europe is and that
there was no common crusade undertaken against Bolshevism. This utterance can make
one marvel when one knows of the past reserve that the pope has shown in this matter.

Pius XII was happy about the letter that Pavelic sent him. He received the mentioned
Ustasha principles in Latin, the program of the Ustasha slaughter movement which
"apparently" also "pleased" him. Thereupon he spontaneously turned to Lobkowicz's
daughter, showed interest in the work of the Ustasha youth, and probably heard some
stimulating information that inspired him to critical decisions. And in the whole process
there was no objection to Ustashadom, not one, not even the mildest criticism!

Pavelic wanted to and intended to visit the pope once more personally. Although there
was in the Vatican the greatest inclination toward him, there were still for a while some
scruples because of the "neutrality" thing. A renewed visit from Pavelic would have been a
greater matter than a telegram or any other sort of indication of good relationships.
Pavelic's visit with the pope in May 1941 had caused some very sharp criticism in a part of
the confederate press. Pius did not want this to be repeated and did not want himself to
be subject to a renewed criticism because of Pavelic. He therefore decided to send
Marcone and Lobkowicz ahead and to avoid a personal encounter with Pavelic. Marcone
and Lobkowicz, however, sought a compromise. They did not have the heart to reject
Pavelic! In a letter from Lobkowicz to Lorkovic on 18 May 1943, there is the following
interesting passage:

In connection with the visit of the poglavnik, who is expected here, we discussed the
question of his audience with the Holy Father. I let him know that the poglavanik—in
case he were to come to Rome—would very much like to visit the Holy Father. Since he
knows that such a visit could be associated with unpleasantness, he would like to hold the
meeting with the Duce at a diffrent site if possible; in any case, this would depend
exclusively on the Italian government. The cardinal [Maglione, author's note] said that he
would speak to the Holy Father about it. He is convinced that there are basically no
diffculties standing in the way of a visit from the poglavnik with the Holy Father. He said
he could merely not be received as a head of state. The cardinal added that he regrets very
much not being able to see the

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

poglavnik himself on this occasion, because this could be interpreted as an abandonment


of the carefully emphasized Vatican policy of unconditional reserve.

Although Pavelic's visit exposed the Vatican's "neutrality" (which otherwise had been
exposed frequently anyway) and therefore was not a simple matter, although it would
have been preferable to the Vatican if Pavelic had not even wanted to come, he was
nevertheless to be received. So an audience for this notorious bandit caused no "basic
difficulties" for the pope. But he would not be received as a head of state, but again as a
"private individual." The matter was so disguised that Maglione could not see him
formally, so that it would not look like Pavelic was being received by the state secretary as
a head of state. It is very interesting that there were "no basic difficulties" when the
perpetrator of countless crimes in Croatia was received. Perhaps because he came to the
pope not as a "head of state" but as a "private individual"? But how was it that one forgot
that precisely this "private individual" had been sentenced by a French court for the
murder of the head of the Yugoslav state, with whom the Vatican entertained normal
diplomatic relationships?

Ultimately there was no meeting between Pavelic and Pius XII, because Pavelic did not
have an opportunity to come to Rome. He was waiting for an opportunity to combine the
meeting with the pope with a visit with Mussolini. Mussolini had greater problems at that
time. He more and more turned Croatia over to Hitler's influence, because the defeat of
Italy in Africa was taking shape; soon the allies' invasion and the consequent collapse of
the Italian empire and of fascism was to follow. Because of the above-mentioned reasons
of consideration, Pavelic dropped the idea of visiting the pope alone.

In the spring of 1943, some months before the collapse of Italian fascism—i.e., at a time
when the development of the war situation must have been clear to the Vatican—there
were still noteworthy situations in which Pius XII made his real attitude toward
Ustashadom known. One of these events was the audience of the Ustasha Werner, the
mayor of the city of Zagreb, who called on the pope on 11 April 1943. In a letter of 14 April,
Lobkowicz informed Lorkovic how this audience was arranged. Although the date had
come about suddenly and surprisingly, although it was normally objectionable to the
Vatican when audiences were requested at certain dates, and although the pope had just
recovered from an illness shortly beforehand and was very busy, the audience for Werner
was organized willingly. No doubt that this had to be seen as an indication of special
preference for the Ustasha state and was also understood as such by the Ustashe.
Lobkowicz mentioned all this and continued:

During the procession through the halls, the guard granted him all respect. At the
entrance to the Clementine Hall, the Swiss guard stepped into rank and file. Such honors
are usual only in very rare cases. We had not expected them at all. Even less so had we
expected that the pope would hold the audience in the "hall of the little throne" which is
right next to his study. In this room he otherwise receives only heads of state. The pope
appeared at precisely 11 o'clock, as was announced in the invitation. He greeted our group
in the Croatian language with "Long may you live!" Then he shook hands with everyone
and gave everyone a silver rosary. Thereupon he spoke to the mayor aside and in German
blessed him and his family. The mayor, however, interrupted the Holy Father and asked
him for a blessing for the city of Zagreb, whereupon the pope added. "In my blessing is
included everything that you want to be included." Thereupon the pope withdrew without
having entered upon any conversation, apparently from fear of getting involved in
politics. Upon his departure, the mayor and his retinue were again given military honors
from the royal guard, the Vatican gendarmes of the Palatina, and from the Swiss guard. . .
. Apparently they wanted to compensate the brevity of the audience with honors that were
otherwise not usual in order to show that they have nothing against us. Monsignore
Montine, Pius's right hand, told me that the pope himself had surely arranged that the
mayor be received. Our expectations were all the more exceeded when in the fall of 1941
the delegation of the Ustasha youth asked for an audience and got it, but afterwards did
not appear. This made a very bad impression, especially since the pope had prepared to
greet the delegation with a special speech.

This reveals the special respect that Pius XII showed Ustashadom, even when it was a
matter of the little mayor Werner. He appeared in his Ustasha uniform with all the
medals from Pavelic. That did not prevent the pope from granting him every honor and
greeting him in Croatian with the cry "Long may you live!" Werner could include anything
he wanted in the blessing, even the Ustasha slaughters. The pope had thus cleverly solved
the problem by giving him a blank check, so to speak.

[..]

One of the most important Ustasha audiences with the pope is the one from David
Simcic, the "general administrative head of the command of the 2nd armada," who bore
the rank of an Ustasha minister. This audience took place on 9 July 1943 shortly before
the collapse of fascism and Italy's capitulation. It took place, as Lobkowicz writes in a
letter to Lorkovic on 13 July 1943, "upon his request, upon the request of the Italian
circles from his retinue, and finally upon our request, because we viewed this

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

audience for various reasons as very appropriate and useful." In addition it says:
it is of significance that the invitation was directed to him as minister with all the titles
appropriate to him in his position. It was the first time that the Vatican acted thus; up
until then, all Croatian personalities were received only as private individuals without any
formal consideration for their position. Also on the invitation to the Zagreb mayor stood
simply "sig. Ivan Werner."

Simcic described his audience with the pope in a manner as is described in the following
letter from Lobkowicz to Lorkovic:

I was received in the Sala della tronetta, directly next to the pope's study. Upon my arrival
and upon passing through the Vatican halls, the guards and the courtiers granted one all
honors, as for a minister of a recognized (!) state. The papal Maestro di camera,
Monsignore Arborio Mella di San Elia, greeted me very cordially and led me into the room
in which the audience was to take place. When the pope entered the room, I asked him
for his blessing. After he had granted me that, the Holy Father entered upon a cordial and
friendly conversation. He asked me how the Croatian people were bearing the difficulties
of the war and whether they were obliged to suffer much. I replied that the Croats were
certainly feeling the misery of war but that I would hope that humanity, after so many
attacks on Christian principles, would nevertheless come to the just peace that would
bring justice and happiness to all peoples and also to the Croatian people. I told him that
the Croatian people unfortunately lived in an area in which the interests of great powers
were colliding and that I, however, held the hope that these powers some day would show
an understanding for justice and the interests of the Croatian people. The Holy Father
asked me what my goal was in my work. I replied that my work was serving the struggle,
to help the people, and to convince Italy of the necessity of fully understanding the
interests of the Croatian people and of the Croatian state, because I was sure that the
Italians as Catholics and as very sensitive people understood and comprehended our
desires and needs better than anyone else. Therefore, I am a friend of Italy. I noted that
this made the pope very happy, because he added. "It is true that the Italian people have a
bigger heart (di un piu ampio cuore) than many others." In addition the Holy Father
asked me whether the Croats felt the split of interests between Italy and Germany as
much as did the Slovenes (one day before this, the bishop of Ljubljana, Dr Gregor
Rozman, had been in an audience with the Holy Father). I replied that we felt the split but
that the Germans as well as the Italians recognized Croatia's sovereignty. As the
conversation continued, I described to the pope the work of the Catholic organization
"Caritas," which in dire circumstances had aided the hungry and displaced Croats very
much. The pope was very

interested in this and praised the Zagreb archbishop in general. Toward the end of the
conversation, the pope said that the Croats were a good Catholic people. To his great
pleasure, he had had the opportunity to speak with the poglavnik, about whom he had
heard to his great satisfaction from all sides that he was a practicing Catholic. I confirmed
this and expressed my hope that the poglavnik would soon come to Italy. I said I was
convinced that it was his desire to be permitted to ask the papal blessing upon this
occasion. Thereupon the pope replied: "And I will gladly do that upon this occasion!" After
he had again blessed me and my work, he asked that God grant a just peace to the whole
world and to all small peoples as soon as possible.

Lobkowicz added:

We considered the words of the Holy Father, with which he expressed his willingness to
see the poglavnik, as extraordinarily significant, because they could be interpreted as a
change in the attitude of the Vatican in this matter as presented in our reports. . . .

Monsignore Montini, however, explained in reply to Lobkowicz's question that the


possible visit from Paveli6 would still remain "private."

The description of the audience with David Simcic reveals once again the sympathy that
Pius XII had for Pavelic and Ustashadom. He gladly noted that Pavelic was a "practicing
Catholic." He remembered his first encounter with him and very much wanted to grant
him his blessing again. . . . He made not one word of criticism to the Ustasha minister for
the two bloody Ustasha years in Croatia, for the horrible massacres and the terrible
crimes. To the pope it is a "consolation" that Pavelic is a "practicing Catholic." All else is
completely unimportant! It is also of note that all of this took place at the time of the
great turn in the war and directly before Italy's capitulation, when Pius XII could see the
general international situation quite clearly and could really speak completely frankly
with the Ustasha representatives. Nevertheless, he continued to reckon with the "dear
Croats," who were playing a special role in the Balkan in the sense of the Vatican's ancient
interests.

It is perfectly clear that Pius XII showed great predilection and great interest for Pavelic
and the Ustashe and wanted to grant aid to the fascist regime in Croatia. From all of our
arguments and from the documents, it is clear that the pope helped the Ustashe much
more than even they had expected at first.

There was neither a formal nor a de-facto recognition of the NDH, but events
accumulated that illustrate clearly that the Vatican did not hesitate when it came to
showing sympathy for the Ustashe.

PART I: THE BALKAN AS A BULWARK

In August of 1941, there were finally direct relationships between Pave-lic's Ustasha state
and the Vatican, when the pope sent his legate Mar-cone to Zagreb. He confirmed hereby
that the reports from Stepinac and the conversation with Pavelic had satisfied him, that
the events in Croatia were not contradictory to his principles, and that now all barriers to
recognizing the NDH at least de facto were eliminated. In the fourth volume of Stepinac's
diary we find on page 323:

On 3 August at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the papal legate came, his excellency Ramiro
Marcone, with the secretary Giuseppe Massucci from Rome. At first he resided with the
fathers of the convent of the Holy Spirit. The archbishop visited him as soon as he learned
of his arrival and invited him to stay in the palace. On 6 August, they moved into the
palace. His excellency, the legate, was quickly received in an audience with the poglavnik.
Therewith the Holy See recognized the independent State of Croatia de facto; the de-jure
recognition, however, has not yet happened.

We will speak later about the figure of the papal legate Marcone and the role that he
played. It is precisely his activity that will illuminate the character of the relationships
between the Vatican and the Ustashe in many respects.

(Secret Documents on the Relationships between the Vatican and the Ustasha-NDH, pp.
46-55, 36-37)

Note

1. Felici was nuncio in Belgrade and in this function maintained relationships with the
Ustashe. He assured them that the Vatican would recognize them.

PART TWO

MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS IN THE "KINGDOM OF GOD"

"The Ustasha State, State of Catholicism"

Within the borders of the Ustasha NDH, there were approximately 5 million Catholic
Croats, about 1.9 million Orthodox Serbs, and about 250,000 Moslems. Already in the
first days of the enemy occupation and of the fascist Ustasha reign of terror, began a
harrassment of the Orthodox inhabitants of the NDH. The Orthodox Serbs were declared
illegal and enemies of the Ustasha NDH. Their gruesome liquidation was decided and
prepared. It was intended to murder a part of the Orthodox Serbs, to send another part to
Serbia, and to convert the rest to the Catholic faith in order to thus make Catholics and
Croats of them. The position of the Ustasha NDH regarding the Orthodox Serbs is
traceable back to the first Ustasha leaders, the ministers Budak, Zanic, and Puk, the main
cohorts of Pavelic in the early days of the NDH.

On 6 June 1941 at an Ustasha meeting in Krizevci, Mile Budak spoke about the question
of the liquidation of Orthodoxy. The meeting began with a mass, which gave Budak the
opportunity to bring up the notion that the Ustasha state was "a state of Christianity." He
said: ". . . we are a state of two religions, Catholicism and Islam." He ranted against the
Orthodox Serbs, who were intruders in Croatia and enemies of the Croatian people. The
Serbs would push the boundary post of Orthodoxy from east to west to the detriment of
Catholicism:

But if God wants, that boundary post will disappear from the Croatian state, because one
cannot establish borders of foreign fields.

129

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

In a speech in Karlovac on 13 June 1941, Budak said:

The whole work of the poglavnik is a chain of events, deeds, and sacrifices based on divine
providence and necessarily leading to success, as was the case on 10 April when the NDH
was proclaimed.

In Budak's depicting the poglavnik as the executor of divine will, he presented


Ustashadom as a movement whose every action was in the interest of the Catholic
Church. Ustashadom was to purify Croatia of Orthodoxy. Budak also said:

We who have studied history know that the Almighty has placed a border along the Drina
between two worlds.

There arose the greatest church since the creation of the world, namely the Catholic
Church. And there arose also the greatest empire that has ever been, namely the Roman
Empire. The Drina is the border between east and west . . . , which is why we got the title
Ante Morale Christianitatis. ... All our work is based on our submission to the Church and
to the Catholic faith. For history has taught us that we would have long since disappeared
if we were not Catholics.

In Vukovar on 8 July 1941, Budak called the Serbs in Croatia "intruders" from the east,
who had been brought along by the Turks as servants and carriers in their raids:

They only belong to the Orthodox Church, and it has not worked for us to assimilate
them. They should, however, know that our solution is: bow down or get out.

In Pakrac on 20 July 1941, Budak said: "With the Wallachs, eat only half the bowl. Before
you eat the other half, slay him with the bowl or else he will slay you."

Some days later at a meeting in Gospic, Budak said:

We will kill one part of the Serbs, the other part we will resettle, and the remaining ones
we will convert to the Catholic faith and thus make Croats of them.

The minister of the Ustasha government, Milovan Zanic, spoke in Nova Gradiska
(according to the Ustasha paper Novi List of 3 June 1941):

This must be a country of Croats and of no one else, and there is no method that we as
Ustashe will not use in order to make this country truly Croatian
and to cleanse it of Serbs, who would threaten us at the first chance. We do not hide this
fact. That is the policy of this state, and when we carry it out we will act only acconding to
the principles of the Ustashe.

Zanic spoke on this occasion of the fact that the Ustasha state would settle the areas
purged of Serbs with Croats from America. "They will occupy the home hearth that we
will have cleansed." Ustasha justice minister Mirko Puk, in his speech in Krizevci on 6
June 1941, ranted against the Serbs most harshly: "Either you get out of our land
voluntarily or we will force you out."The Ustasha bandits, whose highest representatives
we have quoted, were convinced that their treatment of the Orthodox Serbs would please
the Catholic Church. From the first day of their brutal and criminal liquidation of the
Orthodox inhabitants of Croatia, they counted on the greatest possible support of the
Catholic Church. The Ustasha interpretation of the cooperation of the Vatican with the
Ustashe was iterated by Budak in Ivanac on 3 August 1941 with the following words:

One should remember that the Catholic Church, which is neither a terrorist organization
nor led by imbeciles, undertook six crusades for the liberation of Christ's grave. And it
even went so far as children undertaking crusades. If this was the case in the 11th and
12th centuries, we are sure that the Church also understands the Ustasha struggle.

Budak said this shortly after Pavelic's visit with the pope, at which time he himself was in
Pavelic's retinue. The fact that Ustashadom had found sympathy in the Vatican and also
with the clergy in Croatia, is proven by the rich chronicle of cooperation from both sides
during the occupation years. There is an abundance of proof-laden documentation on this
subject, which testifies to it and cannot be denied.

This concept pervaded from top to bottom, right down to the simplest priests, and fired
their fanaticism and Ustasha chauvinism. Many priests spoke like the pastor from
Udbina, Mate Mogus:

Until now we have worked for the Catholic faith with the prayer book and with the cross.
Now the time has come to work with rifle and revolver.

(NoviList of 24 July 1941)

The organ of the archbishopric of Sarajevo, Katolicki tjednik, of 15 June 1941 ranted
against the Orthodox Serbs by bringing up "the Ustasha rebellion," i.e., the criminal
activity against the Serbs as a phenomenon that was completely in harmony with the
position of the Church:

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

The rebellion of the poglavnik was doubtless a special object of divine providence, and
through it, it was also planted in his heart and allowed him ultimately to accomplish such
wonderful results. The rebellion of the poglavnik is so welcome precisely because it
stands in the service of justice and is totally directed against evil. . . . For the Croatian
people, the Serbs are the biggest enemies, to which, as in the rest of Europe, we can add
the Jews, the Free Masons, and the communists. . . . Therefore: may we finally stop using
the dumb claim, so unworthy of the followers of Christ, that one should fight against evil
and against ruinous people in a polite and elegant manner. Hildebrandt, the simple
Benedictine monk filled with holy rage, and also Pope Gregory VII purged the Church of
many parasites, not with elegance but with a strong hand directing the holy revolution.
The poglavnik is a courageous man, a great man, a man of God and of the people. May the
dear Lord preserve our poglavnik for a long life! And may He preserve him always ready
for action in the holy revolution against all evil!

Such was the way that the leadership of the Catholic Church in the NDH saw the
persecution of the Orthodox Serbs, and this was the way they gave moral support to the
barbarism and justified it as God's desire and beneficial to the Church.

The Participation of Vatican Clergy in the Mass Murders of Serbs

In January 1942, the Holy See appointed Archbishop Stepinac as military vicar for the
army of the Ustasha.

Affidavit of the militia-ministerial work Presidium of the Bishops Conferences Nr. 22/BK-
1942

To the Reverend Archbishop Ordinarius in Sarajevo

It is an honor for me to inform the worthy recipient that I have been appointed by the
Holy See to the position of military vicar "sine titulo" for the Croatian army. As my
representatives I have appointed the Reverend Stipe Vucetic, the minister of the chief
staff in the ministry of the Croatian militia, and the Reverend Vilim Cecelj, the
representative of the minister of the chief staff in the ministry of the Croatian militia. For
this purpose, I have transferred to them the necessary affdavit with all authorizations that
were given me by the Holy See.

I have also appointed militia-clergy and have given them the pastoral affdavits.

In order to avoid any misunderstandings in the jurisdiction between the ordinaria of the
diocese and the military clergy, the Holy See has extended to me the decree concerning
the jurisdiction of the military ordinarius for the Italian army (See the Congr. Consistr. of
13 April 1940, A AS, 1940, 280; the Croatian translation of the decree is enclosed). This
pertains particularly to points 2, 3, 6, and 5 of this decree, in which is described the
responsibilities of the military clergy and their relationship to the diocese

133

134 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


ordinaries and the relationship of the diocese ordinaries to the military clergy and the
military ministerial caretakers.

You will later be informed by the chancellery of the military vicarage in the ministry of
the Croatian militia concerning which military ministerial workers will be active in their
territory.

Zagreb, 20 January 1942

Dr. Alojzije Stepinac

Chair of the Bishops Conference

(Vladimir Dedijer archives)

In the early days of the NDH government, a part of the Catholic clergy took over the
organization and arming of the Ustasha militia in the individual cities and towns, from
which military Ustasha formations were recruited. This part of the Ustasha priests
voluntarily followed Pavelic's call and actively participated in the build-up and
strengthening of the war spirit of the Ustasha units. As military clergy, they accompanied
the units on their expeditions, encouraged them in all their marauding and murdering
actions to commit bloody crimes, and they themselves served as examples.

In Yugoslavia and in the whole world, the gruesome crimes of the Ustashe and militia
units are well known. Military clergy regularly accompanied their units in such criminal
undertakings.

But there is known not one single public protest from the military priests and their
highest curacies, with which they would have condemned the activities of the military
units. It is also not known that the high ecclesiastical offices ever punished any military
priest, in whose presence and with whose approval crimes were committed against our
people. All military clergy were under the supervision of the military curacy that was
founded in 1941 in the ministry of the army of the NDH. Pavelic established them upon
the suggestion of Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, the archbishop and apostolic military vicar.

The armed Ustasha formations accepted as military clergy only priests who were trusted
Ustasha volunteers. But also for the remaining units in the NDH, military priests were
recruited from the ranks of the volunteers. From the files of the military clergy of the
ministry of the armed forces for the NDH, it is clear that many more people reported for
military service than was necessary.

For the fact that the Catholic clergy to a great extent was loyal to the occupational
Ustasha regime and was ready to fight for this regime with weapon in hand and for this
purpose ready to join the Ustasha formations voluntarily, the following original letter
from the "Ustasha Staff Cetina-Split" gives the best proof:
'eJoStoja tc Prof.Dr,O.J»roolfti

Facsimile of the communication of the Ustasha staff Cetina-Split from which it is evident
that 21 priests and monks volunteered for service in the Ustasha army

Ustasha-Croatian Liberation Movement

Ustasha Staff Cetina-Split

Nr. 1236/44

Split, 14 August 1941

Re: Affidavits for the members of the Frankonian Provincial Government. To the
Frankonian Provincial Government Dobri

Affdavits for acceptance into military priesthood have been filed for Prof. Dr. Jeronim
Setko, Frater Vjeko Susnjara, Frater Bernardin Liberjak, Frater Ambroz Budimir, Frater
Krsto Susnjara, Frater Ante Beslic, Frater Joakim Friganovic, Frater Mirko Covic, Frater
Ivan Bilusic, Frater Franjo Nimac, Frater Gavro Nikolic, Frater Vjekoslav Vrcic, Frater
Paulin Vukovic, Frater Augustin Babic, Frater Josip Jankovic, Frater Ivan Sarmardzija,
Frater Ivan Nandac, Frater Ivan Abrus, Frater Franjo Bilokapic, Frater Bernard
Medvedovic.

For the poglavnik and the homeland—prepared!

Adjutant for administration Zdenko Dupin

Representing the Chief of Staff Engineer Nikola Simetic

136 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

The priests in the army of the NDH who always accompanied the units had various
functions, among which was the blessing of weapons.

Upon the occasion of the departure of the ship Hrvatska Mornarica to the Black Sea,
where the Ustashe were intending to fight against the Red Army "shoulder to shoulder
with the German associates," a celebration was held in Zagreb in which the high Catholic
clergy took part with the Zagreb archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac at the head.
Along with the fulfilling of their military ministerial duties, Catholic priests also assumed
various military tasks and sometimes had the rank of commanding officer in the Ustasha
militia.

The leadership of the NDH valued the enormously great help that they got from these
Catholic priests in their bloody work, and thus they were rewarded accordingly for their
services. Many priests and especially military clergy asserted the authority of their
priestly office and the Church in order to contribute as much as possible to the realization
of the Ustasha's criminal plans. Military clergy held fervent propaganda speeches in order
to entice the farmers into the Ustasha units. In the army they incited national and
religious hate, at first against the Serbs and later against the people's liberation
movement. Especially great were their efforts in the army units, where they incited the
soldiers to fight unrelentingly against the people's liberation movement. Many military
priests took part in the battles and the raids of the armed units of the NDH in order to
give the soldiers an example. The military priests persisted up to the end and advocated
unrelenting resistence right up to shortly before the defeat, and in doing so, they fought
in the battles with rifle in hand. Some Franciscan cloisters became regular fortresses from
which the units of the Yugoslav army were opposed doggedly. According to documents
from Ustasha sources, Catholic priests were the pillars of the formation and the defense
of the Ustasha NDH.

The clero-fascist newspaper Hrvatska smotra (Zagreb, Nr. 7-10/1943) published a treatise
by Dr. Ivo Guberina, a priest and leader of the Catholic Action and also captain in Pavelic's
bodyguard. He explained with scientific pretensions the necessity and practicality of
eradicating or converting the Serbs and cites Catholic morality.

On the subject of the annihilation of the Serbs, Guberina expounds:

Certain elements in Croatia, who in the days of Yugoslavia had the task of devouring the
state and national organism of Croatia and to make it unfit for life and especially to make
it unfit for the role for which providence has destined it (being the outpost of Catholicism
against the east), have also remained in the Croatian organism even after the fall of
Yugoslavia without having changed even one iota of their anti-Croatian stance. It is the
natural right of the Croatian state and of the Croatian people to cure its organism

of this poison. The Ustasha movement has assumed this task. It uses methods that any
doctor would use to cure the organism: where it is required, he performs the necessary
operations.

The Ustasha movement would most prefer these heterogenous and now hostile elements
to be quietly but voluntarily assimilated or to remove the entire poison from the
organism (i.e., to resettle them into their mother land). But when such elements cannot
be assimilated but choose to stay in the organism in order to destroy it with their "Fifth
Column," or, even worse, to carry on an armed battle, then they are opponents to all
principles of Catholic morality, and the state of Croatia has the right to annihilate these
opponents even with the sword.

This means that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church approved the elimination of the
Serbs only because of their reluctance to be assimilated, i.e., to be converted and become
Catholic. According to Guberina, these "elements" would deserve being annihilated just
because they chose to cling to their faith and their nationality. It is, of course, even worse
that they would pursue armed battle, but even if they would not do this, they would have
to be eliminated.

The criminal interpretation of the Catholic concept of morality is expressed fully in the
following sentence:

Against such opponents, defense with the sword is allowed, and if it must be, a preventive
defense without waiting for the moment of attack.

What does this mean if not the demand to slaughter a perfectly peaceful populace for
"preventive reasons"! In time they could arrive at the idea of fighting; the children could
grow up and then also be dangerous, which is why the slaughter of the children is
appropriate for "preventive reasons." All Serbs should be killed "without waiting for the
moment of attack." All this is called "defense." The emphasis is, however, on the "sword,"
with which the peaceful Serb populace is to be killed for "preventive" reasons! All this is
justified by the Catholic concept of morality.

According to Guberina's opinion, those Catholics are in error who condemn the Ustasha
movement because of their criminal methods, which he calls "decisive operations":
These are principles on which even natural law depends, and therefore every Catholic is
duty bound by his conscience to carry them out and to see to it that they are converted
into action as the Ustashe have undertaken under present circumstances, to look after
their execution in Croatia. Anyone who chooses to stand in the way is not aware of his
Catholic calling. . . . Under these circumstances, it is a sin against the creator to stand by
inactively in

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

the fateful battle. It would be a regular betrayal of God's affairs to fight on the side of the
opponents. . . . The opportunity has come to the Croatian Catholics to show what great
defenders of God they are. A Catholic is not a professional critic nor an intellectual dwarf,
but a man who uses every opportunity in the brave struggle to carry the matter to victory.
It is the duty of every Catholic to do anything to further the essence and the goodness in
the Ustasha movement. ... It is a religious obligation to support the Ustasha movement. . .
. The Church is pleased when the follower fights consciously in the ranks of the Ustasha
movement, which according to its tradition and leadership, but especially in its program
strives for that social and political condition in which the Church can exercise its mission
freely.

There were numerous priests who personally murdered, slaughtered, tortured, and
personally committed the most horrifying bestialities. Guberina was not only
bloodthirsty, but also a maniac in his writing, and thus did he leave us the above
document, which not only characterizes his criminal personality precisely, but also
characterizes the ranks from which he came and to which he belonged. As a Doctor of
Theology, he was one of the ideologues of the clero-fascism, a head of this band, with the
intention of sometime becoming bishop.—Did none of his Church superiors do anything
against this priest's defending in black and white the bestial slaughter of innocent men,
women, and children? Did no one take him to task when he read this paper, in which
murder is justified with the Catholic position on morality and the Vatican line of higher
Church interests? Guberina formulated his criminal views with too much assuredness,
with too much openness and determination to assume that he did not do it with the
knowledge and approval of higher offices.

(Secret Documents on the Relationship of the Vatican and the Ustasha NDH, pp. 86-90)
Archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, here with his personnel wearing the medals of the
Ustasha and conveying New Year's greetings to Ante Pavelic.

The pious Catholic, Dr. Mile Budak, Minister of Education and Culture said on 22 July
1941:
"The basis for the Ustashe movement is religion. For minorities such as Serbs, Jews, and
Gypsies, we have three million bullets. We will kill a part of the Serbs. Others we will
deport, and the rest we will force to accept the Roman Catholic religion. Thus the new
Croatia will be rid of all Serbs in its midst in order to be 100 percent Catholic within 10
years."

142 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

On 28 March 1941, Archbishop Stepinac, showing the same attitude, noted the following
about the Serbs and about the coup d'etat of 27 March:

"All in all, Croats and Serbs are of two worlds, northpole and southpole; never will they be
able to get together unless by a miracle of God. The schism [Eastern Orthodoxy] is the
greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than Protestantism. Here there is no moral, no
principles, no truth, no justice, no honesty." (Photograph above).

A photograph of five diaries of Archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, which yield proof of the
connections between the Vatican and the "Independent State of Croatia" created by the
Ustashe.
Archbishop Stepinac greets Pavelic on the occasion of the anniversary

oftheNDH in

Aprii 1945.

144 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


Above, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac has prepared a festive lunch for a group of Ustasha
emigrants after they returned from the special camps in Hungary and Italy—from a
private collection.

Below. Archbishop Stepinac and Pavelic in a friendly conversation.


Above, Archbishop Stepinac with other Church honor bearers in front of the Cathedral of
Saint Mark in Zagreb waiting for Ante Pavelic, his government, and the delegates of the
Croatian parliament, who are to come to the ritual mass, on the occasion of the opening
of parliament in 1942— Hvratski slikopisni tjednik Nr. 14, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. Z
1125.

Below, Pavelic comes to the Zagreb cathedral on the day of the opening of the Croatian
parliament; he is being received by Archbishop Stepinac—Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

146 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


Above, Ante Pavelic and Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac in the Zagreb cathedral just before
the ritual mass on the occasion of the opening of parliament—Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. Z
5047.

Below, Archbishop Stepinac personally takes part in the interment of the Ustasha
criminal Marko Dosen—Yugoslav Cinemathek.
Above, Dr. A. Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb, in a conversation with the Ustasha generals
Stancer and Sertic.

Below, Archbishop Stepinac (front row, middle) during a session of the Ustasha
parliament in which he and ten other clerics were regular members.
Members of Pavelic's bodyguard swear allegiance unto death to the Croatian leader and
receive the church's blessing—Yugoslav Cinemathek.
150 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Above, A session of the Ustasha parliament. In the loge of diplomats (right), one can see
the papal nuncio Marcone (in a white robe), to his left his secretary Marcucci.

Below, The local Ustasha commander, Plese, during a speech from the altar of the church.
Altars frequently served as speaker's platforms for the Ustashe's propaganda speeches.
Greeting of Pavelic on 13 April 1941 in Ogulin by pastor Mikan Petronovic—Private
collection.

152 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


Above, Priest Bralo in Zemum 12 June 1942. The emblem "U" stands for "Ustasha"—
Yugoslav Cinemathek.

Below, Zagreb 1943. Church blessing during the celebration of the national holiday of
fascist Italy—Yugoslav Cinemathek.
PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Priznanje vrlom hrvatskom

sveceniku i borcu
Awarding of medal to a Franciscan pater.

The Massacre in the Karitska Jama Gorge

In May and June of 1941, the Ustashe tossed a great number of Serbs into the gorges of
Hercegovina These execution sites have not been investigated yet today. The merchant
Milija Bjelica escaped alive from the Koritska Jama gorge. He reports the following about
the massacre:

At the end of May 1941, a truck carrying 30 to 40 armed people stopped one day in front
of the elementary school in the village of Korita. One could see right away that this was
no regular unit of the army of the newly founded NDH, about which there were terrible
reports in the air. They wore very colorful paramilitary suits, but wore a Fez as a symbol
of the membership in Islam. Soon we were sure that these were mainly our neighbors—
Moslems from Kula Fazlagic, Gracanica, and Gacko, who called themselves gendarmes.

At first they chased the children out of the school so they could have the place for
themselves; then some of them went to the house of my father, Mihajlo Bjelica; back
then we had a shop and a cafe on the street that led from Bileca to Gacko. I worked in the
shop, my brother Adam (Golub) worked in the cafe.

The unwelcome guests entered the two shops in a gruff manner and posted on the door
an order that we were not to sell alcoholic drinks to anyone but them and threatened that
any contrary behavior would be punished on the spot with death. The order was signed by
their commander Muharem Glavinic (so they called him), the Hodza from the
neighboring village Kljuc.

The next two or three days were spent in anxious expectation. We lived the first of June
of this terrible year of war in uncertainty. It was Sunday, a beautiful sunny spring day,
which I will never forget. On this day, the Ustasha horde of the Hodza Muharem Glavinic
arrested two young men,

155

156 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Boro and Andrija Svorcan above the village Korita in Pitoma Gradina near the border of
Montenegro. They bound them with their hands at their backs and drove them to Gacko
as they mercilessly hit them with their fists and the rifle butts and kicked them with their
feet. On the morning of the 2nd of June, on the next day, the Ustashe got some back-up
from Gacko with the Gauleiter Kreso Herman Tonagal at their head. In addition to the
above-mentioned young men that they had driven to Gacko on the previous day, they
were carrying more people arrested along the way. Shortly thereafter Ustasha patrols
appeared throughout the whole village and demanded that all men between 16 and 60
come to the Sokolski Dom [=community house, translator's note] to a meeting at which
the chief of the Ustasha government in Zagreb would explain who would be permitted to
cross the border into Montenegro and whose permission would have to be obtained, and
would tell them other regulations of the new government. They especially emphasized
that hidden weapons and military equipment had to be brought along and threatened
with death anyone who declined to do so. Since our pasture lands and tillable land lay
scattered between the estates of the neighboring Montenegro villages, the people thought
this assembly to be reasonable and normal for the given circumstances and obeyed
without argument. Anyone who grumbled and hesitated got yelled at in a stern voice by
the Ustasha patrols: "What are you waiting for? You heard the order!" and were forcefully
brought to the Sokolski Dom.

Around 4:00 p.m. on this fateful day, a larger group of Ustashe came into our cafe with
Kreso Herman Tonogal heading them. My brother Golub and I served them drinks, of
course without getting paid. As soon as they had warmed themselves a bit, the Gauleiter
Tonogal called: "Enough! Take them away!" Some of the Ustashe pointed their guns at us
and shouted: "Hands up!" After a thorough search, they asked us where the money, our
storage area, and the keys for the shop and the cash register were. We showed them
everything without argument and asked the Gauleiter for permission to say goodbye to
our father, who was lying upstairs on his sick bed. We hoped that they would allow this
and planned to escape. But as he must have read our thoughts, the Ustasha shouted
gruffy: "No way!" With great effort, I suppressed my anger, turned calmly to him, and
said:

"Sir, it is sad that they are arresting us with no reason whatsoever. We have been earning
our living here honestly and with great effort. Everyone who has been in here we have
treated fairly and hospitably with no concern for their religion; for the duration of the
former state, neither I, my father, nor my brother have ever hurt a fly, not to mention
committing any harm to a human being. Your armed people know that, too; just ask
them."

"I know who you are and how you are, but I can't help you; I can't help the fact that you
are Serbs, that you belong to the people among whom the new laws of the state make no
distinction. You are all guilty for what happened during the time of the former Yugoslavia,
and you will pay for it, everyone of you, down to the last." This was his answer, and then
he

called: "Forward!"

At this command, the henchmen shoved us crudely with their rifle butts and drove us into
the great hall of the Sokolski Dom, which was stuffed with arrested people, our neighbors.
At the doors, two guards were posted and at the window a machine gun. One Ustasha
came in with us and informed the arrested people that the meeting would be held only
when everyone was there, right down to the last man, and when the head of the Ustasha
government was there from Gacko.

We sat in the humid and clammy room on the bare floor. In the worried faces of the
people, one could see a terrible fear, like people who are condemned to death. All night
long we did not sleep and spoke in whispers about what would happen to us. Most of
them found consolation in the hope that they would be hauled off to do compulsory labor
or put into some sort of a camp, the way the Austro-Hungarian government did in the
First World War. When day came, we asked a guard why the meeting was not being held
and when they would release us. He answered that the Gauleiter was not there and that
no one would be released without him.

In the course of the 3rd of June, women came with bags and blankets, but they were not
allowed to have contact with us; the guards brought the things in and gave them to those
for whom they were meant. I will never forget the moment when Gojko Bjelica cut into a
piece of smoked lamb and cried: "No one from my family will get out of this alive; I don't
have a brother anymore; only one of us will survive—severely wounded." Although I was
never superstitious, Gojko's talk this time seemed uncanny.

In fear and confusion, we spent one more sleepless night from the 3rd to the 4th of June.
On Wednesday the 4th of June, suddenly the Gauleiter Tonogal came in the morning and
informed us in a threatening voice that all those who would surrender their hidden
weapons—"We know that you have some," he shouted angrily—could go home right away,
while those who refused would have to go into forced labor. After he left, I looked
through a hole in the side door and saw what was happening outside. I saw how the
Ustashe were getting into formation; there were enough there. Their oldest ones stood in
front of the ranks; one of them said something. During the whole time of his speech, the
others were holding their left hand on their breast. Later I learned that the Moslems,
according to their religious customs, did this when they took oaths to kill nonbelievers,
since this was an act pleasing to God.
After administering the oath, the Gauleiter with a pistol shot gave the sign to begin the
massacre. Here I must mention that there is no truth in the talk that some Ustasha
guards gave us a clue in any way as to what awaited us and this allegedly gave us the
possibility to escape. Quite the contrary. Their behavior toward us was inhuman—like
that of a henchman. It is true that not all of them hit us and tormented us in the same
manner (some apparently avoided it), but none of them defended us. Since all leading
Ustasha personalities at this time publicly called for the slaughter of the

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Serbs and for their expulsion from the land, it is hardly believable that those who came to
Korito did not know why. It is much more likely that they all had appeared voluntarily for
this pogrom, firmly convinced that now the Serbian people in the NDH and of course in
Hercegovina would be grubbed out like weeds. That's why they hastened to beat the
others out in grabbing their possessions.

When the sign was given to begin the slaughter, some Ustashe pushed their way in to us
and commanded: "Sit down!' 1 After each of us sat down right where we were standing,
they led one after the other into the cloak room, where five chosen henchmen, probably
volunteers, were waiting. One of them (Becir Music) cut a wash line (not wire, as some
people maintain) into pieces and gave these to Alid Krvavac from Gacko, who with two
helpers whose names I do not know, bound the victims' hands behind their backs; at first
singly and then in threes—back to back. With a pistol in his hand and in a new airforce
uniform, Serif Zvizdic from Gacko observed their work.

When it was my turn, my brother Golub was already bound. Once they had searched me
thoroughly, they tied my hands behind my back and then they tied me and Golub together
back to back. Then they brought Gavrilo Glusac in, searched and bound him the same way
as me and finally tied him sideways to us. Since we were standing with our backs to each
other, we could not move, so they simply pushed us into the adjoining room, or better
said, the torture chamber, which was already full of bound people. There they beat us and
abused us terribly and searched us for weapons, equipment, money, and gold jewelry.
While doing it, they constantly emphasized that those who confess and would do what
was demanded of them would be released immediately. Only Vidak Glusac fell for this
trap. He yielded after gruesome torture and confessed that he had a gun.

They immediately untied him, acted as if they would let him go to fetch the gun and said:
"Go and get the gun. Don't worry. We will bring you home right away, while all the others
will go into forced labor."

Vidak Nosovic, who was crying like a child, turned to a young and beautifully dressed
Ustasha and asked him to loosen the bonds of his hands just a little which were pulled so
damned tight that the rope around his swollen hands couldn't be seen anymore. But the
Ustasha replied cold bloodedly: "You deserve that. I don't feel sorry for you." Then he
turned to me and said "I feel sorry only for these two brothers, because they will die
innocent." He lit a cigarette and put it in my mouth. Vidak begged him in the name of
Allah and in the faith of the prophet to give him a cigarette, too, but the Ustasha didn't
listen to him, just as if this was some wild animal in front of him instead of a human
being. When he had left our presence, I spit the burning cigarette over to Vidak, who
somehow picked it up from the floor with his bleeding mouth.

Filip Svorcan, when they were tying him up, asked the Hodza Muharem Glavinic to look
through his papers carefully. He would be able to see quite clearly that he (Filip) served
15 years with honors as the commander of

the police station, which could easily be proven. The Hodza grabbed his pistol and
screamed in rage: "Fuck your 101 Serbian crosses. Just wait an hour, and 111 read you the
whole book of Serbian regulations." (This was told to me later by Jakov Milovic, who was
in the same group with Filip and who managed to flee from the outer edge of the Koritska
Jama.)

During that whole fateful June night, the quietness of the spring was again and again
shredded by the tormented human screams coming from the Sokolski Dom mingled with
the roar of Mumo Hasanbegovic's truck from Avtovac, with which the henchmen took
groups of 25 to 30 people one after the other up to the Kobilja-Kopf as far as the gorge
Golubnjaca, where they killed them (at first mostly with blunt instruments) and threw
them into the abyss.

When it was the turn of me, my brother Golub, and my godfather Gavrilo Nosovic (I think
we were in the fourth group), the Ustasha pushed us in over boards into the truck, which
had driven up to the door. After us they pushed in eight or nine more groups of three and
then closed the tailgate of the vehicle. There were only three Ustashe on the truck: one in
the cab with a machine gun directed at us, the second in the right-hand corner and the
third in the left corner, both with cocked guns. The cab door was hardly closed when the
truck took off. It crept slowly past our shop, on which the moon was shining. The first
thing I noticed was the torn-down monument of the volunteers of Solan from the village
of Korita, which was close by; then the icon of St. Nikola (on the day of St. Nikola, we had
had our christening celebration), which was hung on the shop where formerly the
business stood. I became afraid that they had also hauled my family off someplace and
perhaps had killed them. Since we were moving on the road to Gacko, there was still a
slight hope that they were taking us to a hearing there.

But when the truck stopped just before the gorge Golubnjaca on the Kobilja-Kopf
surrounded by Ustashe who were armed to the teeth, it was quite clear to us that this was
to be an execution site, where these henchmen would slaughter us like cows or club us
like rabbits. The helpless people suddenly became restless; desperate cries and tumult
arose: some cried like children when they thought of their poor children, wives, and
parents; others gnashed their teeth in helpless despair, while others spit in the faces of
their henchmen and cried out defiantly: "You crooks will answer dearly to God and to
humanity with blood for your outrageous deeds!" Fired with rage, the Ustashe hit us with
their fists, feet, rifle butts, the blunt edge of axes, and other objects to try to subdue the
wailing and to be able to carry out their slaughter in peace.

The bright moonlight lying on the rocky peaks of the Bjelasnica and Troglav mountains
sank into darkness and was lost in the horror of what was expected. To our misfortune,
we three (I, my brother Golub, and my godfather Gavrilo) were sitting close to the cab of
the truck, since we were the first to be thrown into the truck, and now were the last in
turn for the slaughter. So we had to watch the tormented deaths of 27 neighbors,

160 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

friends, and godfathers and to be convinced that people are worse than the most
bloodthirsty animals. This horrifying sight on the rim of the Koritska Jama brings tears to
my eyes yet today, rips me from the deepest sleep, and accompanies me like a shadow
throughout my whole life. I can find neither peace nor calm, especially since among the
murderers our acquaintances and nearest neighbors were most active: Halid Voloder, the
servant Mumo Hasanbegovic from Avtovac, Dervo Custovic, shepherds from the village of
Kljuc, Hodza Muharem Glavinic from Begovic Kula near Trebinja, Velija Hebib from
Kljuc, Sucrija Fazlagic from Kula Fazlagic, Atif Hidovic, Velija Dzunkovic from Hodinic
and the son of Sukrija Tanovic, who had come to Gacko from Tuzla, who by slaughtering
innocent people could avenge his father, who had been killed by the band of Maja Vujovic
after the First World War.

Contrary to the previous groups, they tried to kill us not with wooden hammers (they
probably didn't think they could kill so many people this way before dawn), but shot us by
using only two bullets for each group of three. The henchmen placed us in threes, tied
back to back at the edge of the gorge in such a way that one of us at the tip of the triangle
was turned with his face to the gorge, the second to the right, and the third to the left. The
shots, which came from close up, were fired into the temples of the two standing at the
sides and hit the back of the head of the one facing the gorge. Apparently the henchmen
did not check to see whether all three were mortally wounded each time, but instead just
immediately threw them into the 20-meter-deep gorge, causing anyone who was not dead
to perish there in torment. From some, they had first taken articles of clothing— the pay
for their efforts, because the Koran, as they said aloud, didn't permit undressing the dead.

These Ustasha bandits hauled one group of three after the other from the truck to the
edge of the gorge, from where ugly curses and blunt blows, together with painful cries of
helpless people fell on our ears.

The tormenting wait, which seemed to us to be unending, was finally at an end. The
Ustashe dragged us roughly from the truck and pushed us to the entrance of the gorge, all
the time hitting us mercilessly. Our attempts to escape the blows or to fend them off
really awakened the base instincts of these monsters in human form. Once they had
gotten us to the edge of the gorge, they placed me with my face to the abyss, Golub facing
the one henchmen, Gavrilo the other. Both henchmen were waiting with guns loaded for
the signal to shoot us in the head from close up. I saw sparks at the muzzle of the murder
weapons and I heard the shots that threw us to the ground. Although my right shoulder
was burning, I was conscious; I noticed that I was not mortally wounded. One bullet had
flown past my collar without injuring my neck while the other had penetrated my right
shoulder. I heard Golub and Gavrilo die gurgling and tried to think what to do. I felt the
murderers loosen the strings on my shoes. I thought that they would perhaps untie my
hands to get my coat (I was wearing a long

coat and Golub had one of leather), and that that would give me a chance to escape. And
indeed they did begin to untie our hands as they were removing my shoes. At this
moment, I could hear a commanding voice say: "What are you guys doing there?"

"These are Golub and Milija. We want to get their coats," answered the one who was in
the process of untying our hands.

"There's no time for that, and it isn't allowed; stop it and throw the bodies down," said the
same man in a stern voice.

But the henchmen did not want to give up their booty. Without thinking of the Koran,
they untied our hands and took off our coats. Although my hands were free, I could not
move my right arm; it felt like I was still tied. When they picked us up from the ground to
toss us into the abyss, I cried out in despair: "Kill me. I am still alive!"

"You won't stay alive. Fuck your Montenegran mother," hissed the murderer and plunged
a bayonette into my breast—fortunately on the right side.

When I regained consciousness, I learned that I was at the bottom of the hollow on a
heap of bodies. I was terribly thirsty and slowly got used to the darkness. Somehow I
managed to pull my left, uninjured arm out from under my body. With its help, I pulled
out my right, completely immobile arm. Carefully I felt around me. Everywhere there
were only bodies. There was something sticky on my hand. I began to shiver from the
cold. In the heap of bodies, someone was gasping as if he were snoring. The horrifying
feeling to be on a heap of dead people forced me to find a safe place, no matter where. I
heard something that sounded like water dripping, which instilled even more the feeling
of thirst in me. I stared in that direction and felt my way to a little split in the cliff and
stuck my head in. In vain I tried to get a few drops of water into my dry mouth. Suddenly
I heard the rattling of the motors, then people running back and forth and screams of
pain, then the cracking of guns and the dull sound of victims rolling down the cliff. They
fell like logs all around me, like the stones that the shepherds of Korita used to throw into
the gorge to frighten the pigeons. This process was repeated about ten times in brief
spurts; then there was dead silence in the Koritska Jama.
Once the truck had taken off in the direction of Korita, I noticed that someone was
scraping along the walls of the cliff. He found my hiding place, laid himself between my
legs, and rested his head on me. I felt his head with my good hand and asked: "Who are
you?"

He gave a start, quickly composed himself and answered: "It's me!"

By his voice I recognized Vidak Glusac and said: "For God's sake, Vidak. How did you get
here? Didn't the Ustashe release you after you confessed to having a gun?"

"Oh no!" cried Vidak. "Those scoundrels broke their promise; after I surrendered the gun,
they brought me back again and put me in the truck. Then they drove me to the gorge and
threw me in alive."

Three more times the truck came to the gorge from the Sokolski Dom

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

loaded with the other unfortunate ones, and the massacre was continued in the same
way. At first we could hear curses mixed with cries of pain, then the crack of guns, dull
blows, and finally the bodies rolling down the face of the cliff. The heap of bodies at the
bottom of the gorge got higher and higher. From there we could hear the last gasps of the
victims who were not yet dead; with our help, a few managed to escape death.

When in the twilight of 5 June the last group had been liquidated, we determined that a
total of eight people had survived this fateful night: Milija Bjelica, Radovan Sakota, Dusan
and Acim Jaksic, Rade Svorcan, Vidak and Vlado Glusac, and Obren Nosovic. With an
insane fear, we were sure that the bodies of our wives, children, and elders were lying
there before us. We breathed a sigh of relief and for a moment forgot this darkest human
insanity that we had survived under miraculous circumstances, when into the pit fell our
bags, the blankets, and other things that our women folk had brought while we were
imprisoned in the Sokolski Dom. Also various tools fell down: axes, hammers, adzes, with
which the henchmen had killed their victims. Some hand grenades also followed, which
fortunately fell into the cliff wall high above us and exploded there. Finally a whole heap
of rock debris came tumbling down. We also heard derisive calls like: "Hainan, didn't we
find you a nice hiding place and covered you with a nice soft blanket."

A while later we heard the bells of a big herd of cows passing the Ko-ritska Jama in the
direction of Kula Fazlagic. While the gorge of Golubnjaca was still steaming from the
blood of the murder victims, the murderers ran into the village like beasts of prey to
plunder the animals and other mobile belongings of their victims, thus leaving the
orphaned children, wives, and weak old folk without a drop of milk. Later I read in an
Ustasha report that on this occasion 5,294 head of small and large animals were driven
from Korita. I maintain that the number was greater by far, for the village of Korita had
been famous for its wealth of animals, especially goats and sheep.

We spent all of 5 June in the gorge and didn't try to do anything. Only in the evening
twilight, when everything was still, did Dusan Jaksic and Radovan Sakota, who were not
seriously wounded, try to get out of the gorge. First Radovan Sakota laid me so that the
water would drip on any face from the side; I managed to get individual drops into my
mouth. Dusan and Radovan used axes and rope that the Ustashe had thrown into the
gorge and they succeeded in climbing out. We waited in fear for what would happen then;
we were afraid that Ustasha guards had been placed around the gorge. Only when a belt
was thrown down from above (we planned it thus) did we know that everything was OK.
This again aroused our hopes for rescue.

But we had to wait for a long time yet in the dark grave of so many people and in the
unbearable stench of blood and bodies. Again on 6 June, the Ustashe plundered the
village and liquidated the arrested Milosevics from the village of Nemanjica and the
Milovics from Zagradac near the school in Korita. Along with the Milosevics and the
Milovics, Radovan Sarovic from Stepen was killed on this day, while the mutilated bodies
of Dorda

Glusac and Branko Kovacevic were found later at the wall of the Trkljina. On the Kubilia
headlands, they shot seven of the Milovics, while three men (Radovan, Blagoje, and
Lazar) were able to escape; the brothers Milovan and Dusan Milosevic managed to escape
from the courtyard of the school at Korita, so that the news of the Ustasha crimes was
spread like the wind throughout all of northeast Hercegovina. Armed people from Gornje
and Donje Crkvice, Vrbica, Somina, Crni Kuk, and other neighboring villages rushed to
the Koritska Jama to rescue the survivors. All the adults of the Kurdulija fraternity joined
them, who knew this area well. After they had gotten strong backup from Gacko and
Bilece, a group came to the gorge. As long as I live, I will remember the moment when we
heard the strong voice of Todor Micunovic from Crkvice: "Oh Milija, try to be patient.
Don't worry, we will get you out of here." Soon the brave and bold Petar Kurdulija climbed
down on a rope into the gorge. From up above they called to him that he should tie me
first, because I was the most seriously wounded; then one after the other, as many as they
could; apparently they were afraid that stronger units of the Ustasha or of Italians could
come. But I asked Petar to take up the 16-year-old Rado Svorcan first, because his mother
had only him, while mine had two children. Only after I heard a determined voice from
above: "Don't worry, Milija, you will all get out," did I consent to being the first to be
pulled up. Petar wrapped the rope around my belly, tied my broken right arm to my
breast, and told me that I had to hold the rope tight with my left hand and kick myself out
from the cliff with my legs. That's how I was pulled up from the gorge of Golubnjaca,
which since this terrible event has been known as Koritska Jama, the common grave of
Svorcan, Bjelica, Glusac, Nosovic, Jaksic, Sakota, Milosevic, Milovic, Kovacevic, and all
the others—in all, over 150 victims. While the others were being pulled out, there was a
misunderstanding: someone called out that an Italian, motorized column was coming
from Bilece. The rescue was thus interrupted; only Obren Nosovic was still in the gorge.
But our rescuers waited. When the error was cleared up, Ljubo Kurdulija, later a fearless
warrior whose heroic deeds were the talk of all of Hercegovina, climbed down into the
gorge and brought Obren up.

After I had been brought up into the daylight, I could hardly believe that I had escaped
death, which had been hovering before my eyes for almost five whole days (I was arrested
on 2 June). I heard and recognized the voices of my rescuers, among whom was my
mother. She asked about Golub, and I only looked at her. Obren Nosovic's son pulled at
my sleeve and asked: "Uncle, is my father still alive?"

"One Obren Nosovic is alive. But I don't know which one, since both had been thrown
into the gorge," I replied with great effort.

They immediately put me onto a horse and we took off. In the saddle, I managed to hold
out until we got to Mrda Kurduliga's house, which was not far away. There they had
prepared a stretcher, on which they carried me to the house of Vulo Micunovic in Crkvice.
Soon the other survivors

164 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

from the village of Korita came there. The residents of Crkvice and the members of other
neighboring Montenegran villages welcomed us as kindly as their grandfathers had done
in the past. They shared not only their homes with us, but also the last piece of bread.
Armed men went to Gacko immediately, where, as they told us, battles had begun against
the Ustasha. For that, the surviving inhabitants of the village of Korita will forever be
grateful to them.

We who had survived the massacre in the Koritska Jama were examined by Dr. Vojo
Dukanovic and Dr. Jovan Bulajic. Vojo gave me a shot for blood poisoning and told Vulo
Micunovic, in whose house I was, to get me to the hospital in Niksic as quickly as possible
and to have me operated on there, because it was the only way to save any life. That is
what happened. Micunovic and the Kraljevics brought me to Miksic on a stretcher with
the help of other residents of Crkvice; with us came also the two doctors mentioned
above. Thanks to their connections, I was taken into the hospital and operated on
immediately. I was in treatment for 48 days.

(From the archives of Vladimir Dedijer.—Milija Bjelica gave the first testimony on the
murder of the Serbs in the Koritska Jama in Mostar at the trial of Hodza Muharem
Glavinic from the village of Kljuc, who had organized the crimes in Korita. Colonel Savo
Skoko talked with Bjelica in the village Gajdobra in Vojvodina, where Bjelica lived after
the war. The text printed here is a combination of the two testimonies from Bjelica.)

The Massacre in the Church at Glina

Ljuban Jednjak, who was the only survivor of the forced conversion and the slaughter in
the church at Glina, reports about it in his testimony in the trial of Archbishop Stepinac:

Early in the morning, my father and I went out to fetch hay, which was somewhat further
down from the house. We brought the first and second wagon home and were just about
to get the third wagon load. Suddenly, as I was looking up toward the village, I heard the
women wailing and saw that people were fleeing. "What's all that?" I asked my father and
told him that I would go up and see.

I came back and told my father that the Ustashe were arresting the Serbs. We left the
wagon standing and ran home. I called to my wife and my mother and the other people in
the village: "Run! They are arresting everyone. Forty have already been arrested." Then I
crossed the Glina and went to Selisce, where I stayed the night. When morning dawned,
the Ustashe opened fire from all four sides on these villages. I had an uncle there, whom
the Ustashe likewise led off, and three cousins, and others—six to seven relatives in all. I
fled through the forest into the village of Belinac; there we hid in the hay. After some
time, the Ustashe came. They stabbed around in the hay with their knives, and one of
them said. "These bastards. There is no one here. They have all fled into the forest." After
a short while, a woman came and said: "Get out, you people. They will set the hay afire
and you will burn up." When I got home, I asked my wife whether anyone had been
looking for me. She told me that the Ustasha had been here and took meat and money
and had asked for me. Then I went into the garden and decided to go to the woods at dark.
I planned to run in the direction

165

166 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

of Gad an and then to flee into the woods. At the crossing, I saw a car, in which sat four
Ustashe. They said to me: "Listen! Come here! Where are you going?" I said that I had a
wagon and horses up there and that I was going to fetch them. Of course I tried to fool
them. "Listen," said the one Ustasha, "you are a Serb. Get in the car." I did, and they told
me to sit between them. One Ustasha asked: "Don't you want to tie him up?" And the
other answered: "It isn't necessary. If he jumps out, we will kill him." I didn't jump out.
We were half the way to Topusko; one of them said to me that I would go with them to
Topusko. Another Ustasha asked me: "Listen, would you rather go to the church or to the
city hall?" I said: "You needn't think I am so dumb. The people have been in the church at
Topusko and in others for two days now." At the crossing he said: "The church is full;
bring him to the city hall." In the city hall, I was alone in a little room. After a half hour,
the Ustashe brought a truck full of people and squeezed them all into this room. They
searched us and placed us in twos. The one said: "Search these scoundrels for gold and
weapons. They are Cetniks." [= Serb nationalists, translator's note]* They searched us one
after the other, and when they had taken the first one out of the room, they got me, and
one Ustasha asked: "Have you been beaten yet?" I had mingled with those from the other
room who had already been beaten brutally, and I said: "You know that you beat me!"
They took us to a truck that was full. After a few moments, the truck left. It went to the
train station in Topusko. There they packed us into a rail car while we had to hold hands
in groups of two. We were brought from various places: from the city hall, from the
church, and from other places. Each car held 150 to 160 people, so that we were lying on
top of each other three deep. . . . One man began to hallucinate and screamed: "Ankica, a
fizz water please," because he thought he was in a bar where he usually ordered that. I
told him he should get a hold of himself, but that didn't help, and two of us had to hold
him down to keep him from thrashing around. We were all lying in a row. We stayed
there from 8 o'clock

♦The term "Cetnik" (member of a ceta = troop) refers to Serbian royalists. Their leader,
Draza Mihailovic, felt himself to be the viceroy for King Alexander, who had been
murdered in Marseille in 1934; he (Mihailovic) desired the restoration of the old regime,
i.e., the reinstitution of the monarchy. Toward the end of the war, Hitler collaborated with
the Serbian Cetniks against Tito's liberation army. At the very least, this fact makes clear
that prior to that time Hitler collaborated with the Croatian Ustasha not for any ethnic
reasons. Rather he was exclusively concerned with keeping his eastern flank (the
Balkans) open to avoid a war on two fronts while he prepared for the Russian campaign.
For this reason, he "liberated" this region by means of a Blitzkrieg and installed Pavelic as
a willing puppet. Thus, ethnic affiliations did not interest Hitler in the least, (publisher's
note)

The Massacre in the Church at Glina

167

in the evening until the next morning. Then the train took off slowly from the station at
Topusko. The train master—I don't know who it was—said that the car was to be coupled
because it was going to Lika and to Gospic. All the Ustashe laughed about that, and
through the little holes in the car we could see that it was going to Glina. When we
arrived in Glina, the Ustashe were waiting for us at the station. An Ustasha approached
each of us from every side. They told us: "Hold hands tight. You are going to the hearing."
We held hands in pairs and thus arrived at the church in Glina. Here were Mirko Dezelic
and the son Nikica Vidakovic, who at the time of these crimes was the city superviser in
Glina or something like that. They said to Dezelic: "Listen, Shorty, bring the keys so that
we can lock these scoundrels in the church." He brought the key and we were locked in
the church. There we simply sat down, and nobody touched anything until they came.
Everything was prepared as for a service. They locked the church and went away. After a
half hour, an Ustasha came again. He asked: "People, are you thirsty? Should we bring
water?" We said that we were thirsty, and an Ustasha brought three buckets of water and
a cup. After we had each had a turn at the water, he locked the church and went away.
After a short time, an Ustasha came again. He asked: "Who among you has a baptismal
certificate?" Adam Korac and Pajo Vorkapic raised their hands and left. After that the
Ustashe told us: "You Serbs were condemned to death in 1918, and today the punishment
will be carried out!" We asked: "Why?" And they said: "Because" and showed us the
pictures in the church. In doing so they said they would sh— on our King Petar. We said:
"Leave us alone, and King Petar means nothing to us." After a few minutes another five or
six Ustashe came in. They said anyone who had to go to the toilet could go. Twenty to
thirty of is went out to take care of their needs, then they came back into the church. They
locked the church again and went away. In the afternoon around 2 o'clock, Stevo
Krestalica came and a Milekovic, who was a watchman in Glina. He commanded us to
stand up and asked: "Is there here a young man who can write down his first and last
names, because you are going to Lika into compulsory labor." So one after the other stood
up, and we entered into the list how many children we had, where we came from, etc. An
Ustasha took this list and went away without saying a word. Toward evening the Ustashe
came again. They asked us: "Who is Pero Miljevic?" Pero Miljevic raised his hand, and
they commanded him to tell what he knew about the Cetniks. They told him: "We will let
you go home. Come here." He went to the middle of the church. They asked him: "What
do you know about the Cetniks?" "I know," he said, "that the notary or cashier Ratkovic
registered some Cetniks in the years 1936 and 1937. In Glina, I did that myself, and we
registered the Cetniks." Then one of them cut down the two-finger-thick bell rope, one
guy held him by the one hand and the other guy held him by the other hand, and they
beat him until he was quite blue. The Ustashe asked further whether anyone else knew
anything about the Cetniks, but no one would reply. Then

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

the Ustashe left.

Shortly before it got dark, we heard a vehicle pull up in front of the church. It was the
Ustashe, about twenty to thirty. "Light the candles," they called. "Listen. Do you believe in
our poglavnik?"—"We believe in him," we answered. "Do you believe in our great
independent State of Croatia?"— "We believe in it," we answered. "Repeat that three times
all together: We believe in the great independent State of Croatia—we believe in the great
poglavnik." We repeated it five or six times. Then they screamed: "Lie down— get up, lie
down—get up," etc. And we lay down and got up. Then we had to take off all our clothes:
pants, shoes, coats . . . and throw them all on a heap.

Then they asked us: "Listen, people. Who among you is Pero Miljevic?" He raised his
hand. "Come here!" He approached them. "Pero, tell us, do you know anything about the
Cetniks?" He answered: "I know that some Cetniks were registered with the notary,
perhaps also with the cashier, in 1936 and 1937, but I don't know anything more." While
he was saying this, an Ustasha went across his chest with a knife, cut it open, and he
collapsed. Then Stojan Bojic from the village of Katinovci spoke up and said: "I know
something about the Cetniks. Will you let me go home then?" "Good, tell us what you
know." "I know," he said, "that we were told when the Ustashe would come with trucks to
the Kamenicki Most up above Topusko, we were to wait for them with axes and pitch
forks, mow them down, and also cut the telephone lines to Kladusa, in order to cut off any
connections." "We need such people right now," cried the Ustasha, "who destroy our state
property. Come here. Get on with it. Lay your head on the table." He laid his head on the
table, and the Ustasha cut his throat. "Now sing!" While he was singing, the blood
squirted two to three meters from his throat. When the blood squirted in our direction, he
said softly to me: "We're done for. This is what will happen to you, too." Then the Ustasha
screamed: "Stab him, that son of a whore." They stabbed him in the neck two or three
times with the knife from the back, and when he fell to the floor, others joined in who
were there specially to crush heads. Two Ustashe jumped on him and smashed his skull.
Then they threw him on a truck.

And on and on, one truck after the other. . . . When they had slaughtered almost everyone
in the church and the number of us survivors had sunk to only ten, I was lying in a corner
of the church and suddenly saw that there was no one in the church anymore. There were
only ten of us. From the corner I was looking toward the door and saw the Ustashe
carrying out bloody people. . . . Blood flowed everywhere in the church. Everything was
calm. The whole church was lit with candles. I threw myself among the slaughtered
people who were lying on the floor, stretched my arms out, and lay there. Three of the
people who were with me hid in a room near the altar, where the priest kept his books.
The other five or six did not manage to hide and were murdered. After some moments,
the Ustashe came to get the dead out of the church, the first, second, third, and on down

The Massacre in the Church at Glina

169

the line. I don't know anymore how many there were. I remained lying down. But they
were coming to get me, too. They went from one to the other and stabbed them with the
knife. One stood on my back and stabbed everyone around me with the knife, one after
the other, like this ... (he demonstrates with his hand). Then it was my turn. He stepped
on my head with his shoe and said: "It's all done." He stepped away and saw someone
living. "Leave me alone, people, I'm still alive. Leave me alone, I never hurt anyone."
"Good," said the Ustasha, "get up." He said to them: "Don't kill me. I am innocent.
Everyone here is already killed. There is no one who isn't killed." I turned my head as far
as I could and saw them murder the man. The Ustashe asked him about his loved ones,
and he replied that he had an eighteen-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old sister. "Do you
want to give me your eighteen-year-old sister?" And the other asked: "Do you want to give
me your twenty-two-year-old sister?" When I raised my head again a little, I saw the one
Ustasha holding to his one hand and the other holding his other hand. One of them
ignited him with the candle, and I saw his moustache burn. Then they began to burn his
eyes. It was unbearable torture. I think the greatest torture in the world. When they had
burned his one eye and were beginning to burn the second, the man screamed, and one
Ustasha hit him in the back with the rifle butt. "Ow"' cried the man. They continued
burning his eye, then they threw him to the floor and smashed his head. They stuck him
between the ribs with the knife and completely ran him through. When they trampled his
head, parts of the skull flew in all directions and also fell on me.

The truck came for the fifth time to fetch the people. The Ustashe carried them out of the
church. One took me by the arms, another by the legs, and they carried me out. They
threw me on the truck where the slaughtered people were stacked on three heaps, all of
them belly downwards. When they threw me on the third heap, it tipped over and slid. I
hit my head against a board. This truck was over full, and so they threw me on another
one. One took me by the legs and pulled me out so that my whole back was mauled, and
as he was pulling me, he hit my head against a rock so that it split open. They threw me
on another truck full of bodies and threw four or five more dead people on top of me. One
of the dead fell on me in such a way that his slit throat was lying directly on my mouth. It
was very uncomfortable, because all his blood was flowing over me. It ran into my mouth
and down my whole body. One Ustasha asked: "Is he dead?" "He's dead," answered
another. They searched the church for any remaining people. They didn't know about the
three who had hid near the altar. As I later learned, these were in the church for two days.
In the third night, however, they climbed to the tower and begged some men for water.
The Ustashe shot them and killed all three.

The truck with the murdered people, where I was, took off. ... I was thinking that I was
alive at least, and there was still hope that I would stay alive. The truck went through
Ukinac and Prekop. I raised my head

170 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

a little and saw two Ustashe sitting there in silence. I knew that the truck turned toward
Novo Selo. I knew the area. The truck went over the field, and when it stopped, the
Ustasha thugs were already waiting for it and they threw the bodies down from the truck.
They drove the truck directly to the pit, so they could throw the bodies down easier. One
pit was already over full. They took me by the legs and by the head and threw me into the
pit.

I was squashed. They threw four or five on top of my legs. One woman showed signs of
life. Oh, what they did with her. They raped her above the pit. She cried and screamed.
"Where do you come from?" they asked her. "I am the teacher from Bo vie." Then they hit
her on the head, and she fell into the pit. Then one said to another. "Go look. Maybe she
has a gold ring. It can be sold." And the other went down, found a ring on her left hand,
and said: "This can be sold." There over the pit stood the Ustashe and were hitting people
with hammers and axes. First one truck came, then a second, a third, and a fourth. I could
hear one person cry and moan: "Oh, my children, my mother. I never hurt anyone."
Already half dead, they hit him once or twice with the ax or a hammer. I could not see
how long the pit was, but only heard the moaning of the people. When they had emptied
the truck, the next one came. There were three pits, one next to the other. They
completely filled the one in which I was not lying. Under me were maybe 100 people, over
me four or five. I listened. Everything was quiet. I could hear nothing. I turned my head a
little and saw that something was moving. I heard one Ustasha say: "Listen, people, they
won't all fit. We have to put them in another pit, and we must stack them up. That will
make more room." Then two came and carried them away. Then they came for the ones
that had been thrown across my legs. They threw one then a second and a third, and the
one who was at the other end moved. "These pigs. There are some alive down there. Shoot
over here." They fired one or two shots and one struck my leg. I was bleeding. I tried to
move by toes and determined: Good, the bone is not broken.

When they had thrown off those who were lying on top of me, they grabbed my arm to
toss me to the other end. Then they saw that I was wearing a thick wool jacket from Lika:
"This guy has some nice clothes. We have to take them off." They grabbed me by the arm
and removed my wool jacket. I held my breath. They turned my face to the ground and
stretched out my legs. I was completely still, and they left. I could hear nothing. Nobody
was talking. I looked arownd and saw something move. I did not know who it was,
whether it was an Ustasha or someone else. It began to rain. I saw someone approaching.
I looked more carefully— somebody crawling on hands and feet. I cowered together. The
person came and asked me: "Are you still alive?" I didn't know who it was, and so I didn't
answer. He lay flat down again in the pit. A little later he came again on hands and feet to
me and asked: "Are you alive?" "I'm alive." "What can we do now? Listen, we must get out
of here." I went to one corner,

The Massacre in the Church at Glina

171

he to another. I looked around a little. Thirty to forty Ustashe were standing there around
another one who was saying something to them. I climbed over the fence into the corn
field in order to hear what they were saying, but heard nothing. The other guy did not
come with me, but went into another village. His relatives then betrayed him, and three
days later he was killed by the Ustasha. Below Novo Selo, I turned and went to Majska
Poliana to my uncle. I did not know which was his house and ran past it. I jumped into
the bushes, where I discovered a man. I was wearing just shirt and pants. Blood and dirt
were sticking to me. My head was split open and scraped, my back was smashed. I asked
him: "Who are you?"—and hid in the bushes. He made like he was going to flee. In 1941,
the Serbs were always in flight, didn't sleep, and didn't eat. I saw that he was going to grab
his coat and flee. I asked him: "Is it you, Stojan?"—"Yes, it's me." He felt uncomfortable
seeing me so covered with blood and dirt. I was swollen every place. "Is it you, Ljuban?"
"Yes, it is me." "Oh, what happened to you, Ljuban?" "Don't tell anybody. Murders were
committed in the church yesterday. I lay among the dead, and I managed to stay alive that
way. Stojan, it's all over. Come on, tell me where my uncle lives." "You went past his
house"—he showed me the way, and I went to my uncle's. When I got to the house, a girl
of about 18 was there; when she saw me, bloody and smeared with dirt, she fainted. I
started to speak, and she recognized my voice. I said that we had been slaughtered in the
church yesterday, and she said that she had heard the screaming at the pit where the
people had been killed with hammers and axes. At this place I recovered a bit and stayed
then for six months with them. During this time, I saw neither sun nor moon. That's how
I stayed alive.

(From the archives of Vladimir Dedijer: materials from the trial of Archbishop Alojzije
Stepinac)

[...]

The Massacre in the Village of Urije

Milovan Dilas's report on the blood bath in the village of Urije:

I was walking on a normal summer morning on a simple village path. It was somewhat
fresher because of the rain that had fallen in the night. I was heavy hearted, and I had to
cry, because I couldn't help thinking of my wonderful pals who had died in yesterday's
fight with the Ustasha here somewhere in front of me on the rich fields and meadows.
But what I then saw on this morning—although I had often read and heard of such
things-filled me with such horror that it made me forget any pain that I was feeling for
my dear comrades. . . . Yes, it all looked quite different from stories I had read. . . .

First we encountered two farmers lying along the path under the wide spread of a big pear
tree. They were lying in the shady grass where men from the village commonly rested.
They had been shot in the back of the head. The bullets had exited under the right ear and
had torn such gaping wounds that brains were running out onto the grass. Six more
farmers had been killed. I saw traces of blood, smeared black in the grass, damp from the
dew: the tormented signs of their last breaths. The bodies had already been removed by
the few survivors.

We continued on our way, which was bordered on both sides with hedges of hazelnut
bushes and ferns. Suddenly lying in the middle of the path were 10 to 20 bodies (I don't
remember the exact number). I believe there were only two men of middle age. All the
rest were women, girls, boys, and little children. Three or four steps from this pile of
blood and flesh lay an empty cradle, without bedding, without a child, but with straw that
was wet with baby urine. The straw in the cradle seemed to be still warm from the body of
the baby. The baby lay among the corpses. But the head was completely

172

smashed, no top on the skull and not a drop of blood in the empty skull. The brain—was it
from this baby?—lay like a thick mush next to the head. In it were tufts of flesh. How was
the child killed? Possibly with a bullet, with a rifle butt, or with a rock. Or was the baby's
head perhaps soft enough for the plated Ustasha boots? The child lay on its left side, its
face turned to the sky, the arms close to its body. The chest was crushed, and under the
dirty, only slightly bloody shirt, an inflated belly protruded. A tiny, horrified child's face
without a skull ... it was a girl.—One day, perhaps on a day as nice as today, sunny and
green, with cheerful colors in the sky, on the ground, on the fields, meadows, and forests,
she could have enjoyed everything, life, happiness, love, youth, people around her. ... But I
wasnY thinking of that. I was thinking of nothing at all. I was only looking and feeling
that I was cold. I wondered how it could have happened that I wasn't feeling anything,
that I did not break out in tears, and that the pain didnt rack me.

The other bodies were mutilated, too. The face of a ten-year-old child was covered with
stab wounds on its forehead and cheeks. A boy, who also had an empty skull like the girl,
lay in the bushes cramped and with his legs pulled up to his body, barefoot and with thin
arms. Through the body growing cold, the skin was taut, and pointed, white bones jutted
out of his forehead. If the boy had not been so mutilated, one could have thought he had
gone to sleep here along the path in the shade and hid so that nobody could see him and
scold him for sleeping instead of looking after the animals so they wouldn't trample the
farmers' fields and pastures. . . .

I went on. At the crossing, from which I could see the city, lay another 25 to 30 bodies. A
mountain of bodies, men, women, and children, arms, legs, and heads. A dark braid tied at
the tip with a red ribbon was entwined with the hanging moustache of an older farmer.

The path was wide here and gave a lot of room for the farmers to sit in the evening to rest
and observe the city. The bodies all lay at the edge of the path and at the stone walls, as if
a storm had piled them up.

I saw two mothers and their babies. Whereas I could not tell at the previous group who
the mothers of the children were, here I could see. A young, black-haired mother was
holding her child in her arms as if she were trying to protect it. As she had been thrown to
the ground, she must have almost crushed it with her body. The hands of the child were
hidden by the mother's breast. The other mother was not holding her child as tight, but
rather was lying on her back, the child next to her, not held, cowering together, the shirt
wet at the breast. The first mother with her black eyebrows gave the impression of old,
fantacized, romantic pictures of murder victims or drowned mothers with their children.
But this was no old, fantacized, romantic picture. This was a murdered mother with her
child, who in the rigidity of death was pressing her baby to her breast. I went back and
met two farmers. A 50-year-old man without a hat showed one a bloody bump on his
right cheek. He said. "We hid from the shooting in the house. They took us all prisoner—
all, even the children. They asked "Were the partisans

174 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

here?"—"Yes, they were here."—"And why didn't you kill them?"—"Where is a Serb
supposed to get a gun?" I asked. They began to hit me. I saw that it was getting rough and
jumped over the hedge. They shot, but I didnt come back. Where my wife and the two
children are now, I don't know."
The other, older farmer with a fur cap said: "And we hid from the shooting in the store.
Two families. One guy threw a bomb in. Before it went off I ran down the field. He threw
another, then he shot with his gun. Two sons and my daughter-in-law—I don't know
where they are. They killed my wife, too. ..."

A little shop with stone walls, whitewashed and full of blood, and there in the semi-
darkness a heap of tattered bodies with broken limbs, thin arms and wounds as big as the
palm of your hand . . .

"Come here, look!" called the farmer to me. I entered the house. The seventy-year-old
man was fumbling among jumbled things and broken dishes. It seemed as if he was
trying to do something or was looking for something to kill time, but he was just
wandering in the trashed house. In the room lay his two dead sons. The old farmer lady
lay cowering and dead next to an empty trunk. The younger, blond son lay in the middle
of the room; everywhere were parts of his brain. His legs were spread, his hands, the big
hands of a farmer, were clutched and pointing upwards, the fingernails dirty from the
earth and from the field. The second, older son lay half under the bed.

The room was small. It was full of blood, in which one could see a footprint: apparently
the old man had left this print behind in the blood of his sons as he was stumbling about.

In the other house everything was tossed about. At the door post were traces of bullets; at
the fireplace lay a farm woman with her throat slit. The bubbles were coming out white,
because the wound was pulling apart. It was a young, 30-year-old woman, who was
smeered with blood on her chin and in her face—did they smeer blood on their hands
while they were holding her? She lay peacefully and beautiful in her destroyed home,
arms and legs stretched out. Her little, chubby hands jut from the wide, not quite clean,
linen sleeves. She was fat smeared, like after milking the cows.

I made the rounds from house to house.

There were no survivors to bury the dead. I saw two or three farmers and their wives,
whose loved ones perhaps had all been killed—not all the bodies had been found yet,
because they lay in the woods and in the fields. They were not crying. Their eyes were
glazed, hard, and without expression.

On the fields and meadows, the animals were grazing without masters and were
bellowing. Two farm women were driving sheep ahead of themselves. I spoke to them,
but they just stood there as if they did not hear me. I remember: I had on a black hat and
a black shirt, and they must have thought that I was an Ustasha. But why did they not run
away, but instead stood standing?

"Don't be afraid! I am a partisan," I said. They approached me. The

one was an older, haggard farm woman, the other was fat cheeked and stout. She had
recently married in the neighboring village and was on the way to visit her relatives. But
the relatives were no longer. She was searching for them. It was very diffcult for her to
search alone, and so she asked me to come with her. We walked around on the battlefield.
In the meadow next to the path, we found two more young men. Next to them a tobacco
box and a little pu r se, smeared up, open, probably empty. . . . Over one of the two, she
said: "From my house, oh misery ... my cousin!" But she did not cry; she spoke just like
she would speak about anything else; and when we finally got to the pile of corpses at the
crossing, after we had looked in many houses full of dead people, she turned around and
asked with a blank and veiled look and folded hands: "What was that, brother?"

I felt nothing. My dear comrades, too, who had fallen in this village, didn't arouse pity in
me. It seemed to me that I could easily and without effort just die. I would not have
ducked a bullet, even if I knew the direction it was coming from. I had no feelings
anymore for my own person and my own life. The farm women did not run away. No one
cried. And still I could just as coldly have taken revenge.

Indeed, in my head and in my heart was only the one thought, which surely everyone had:
Life in this world is not worth living as long as there are people who commit such
atrocities. There is nothing else for us to do: it's either us or them . . .

July 1942 Dido

(As I noted in my diary on 17 July 1942, Milovan Dilas, member of the high staff, reported
to comrade Tito on the massacre in Urije in western Bosnia, which had been carried out
by the troop of Colonel Francetic. Afterwards I asked Dilas to write in my diary in his own
hand what he had told comrade Tito. He complied to this request and made the entry
printed above.)

Documents on Massacres under the Leadership of Priests

The State Commission on the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers in the document numbered 12849/45 determined that Brale Bozidar, Roman
Catholic pastor in Sarajevo, was the organizer of the murders in Bosnia and made the
following statement on him:

Immediately after the founding of the NDH, he became the representative of the Ustasha
commissioner in Sarajevo. After Germany's attack on the USSR, he ordered the mass
arrest of all patriots. With the help of the occupiers, he gathered criminal elements in the
Ustasha formations. These bands under his leadership conducted many massacres in the
immediate vicinity of Sarajevo: Brale with weapon in hand also personally took part in the
massacres on the bridge of Ali Pascha in Reljevo against innocent farmers and returned
from these raids with groups of farmers who were then taken to the camp at Sarajevo and
later disappeared. . . . Brale acted apparently with the approval of his superior, Archbishop
Dr. Saric. Hardly a month after Brale had begun to head the Ustasha bands personally, he
was named by Archbishop Saric to the position of honorary head of the archbishopric of
Upper Bosnia with the right to wear the violet belt. It was generally known that the priest
Brale was Saric's favorite and therefore, in spite of his youth, was put into a responsible
position in the Church. On the day of his appointment, Brale said in a meeting of the
society "Trebevic" that he would work "as my archbishop and my commission in Zagreb
wish" [This concerns the Ustasha Commission, publishers note.] Archbishop Saric
explained his choice of Brale on the occasion of presenting him with the certificate of
nomination by saying that he had "recognized the services of Reverend Brale

176

Bozidar." Brale said the following to the same assembly of the Trebevic society: "From the
ranks of the members of the Trebevic Society, we recruit the Ustashe, the national militia
as well as the Ustasha women and female functionaries." And at this meeting, he said in
his report: "The youth corp was not able to fulfill its duties completely because many of
its male members have voluntarily donned the Ustasha uniforms and have been enlisted
enthusiastically in the battle against the sworn enemies of the Croatian people."

Brale was especially enthusiastic about the horrifying atrocities of the "Black Legion" of
Francetic. He said on 10 July 1942 on the occasion of the burial of fallen Ustashe: "As
pastor and Ustasha, I kneel before these fallen heroes and with the Ustasha salute I
report to them that their 'black comrades,' whose voice resounded in the Kozara
mountains, will also enter the Ivan mountains and the slopes of Konjic and Bradina, to
speak there just the same. In these historical mountains, the machine guns and the voice
of the Ustasha will be heard. Eastern Bosnia will be witness to how the Black Legion
speaks."

After the death of the Ustasha colonel Jure Francetic, Brale said: "Bosnia learned to know
and love him and will hold him in memory as well as the day on which he entered the
date of the founding of the Black Legion in his military diary. There is no doubt that
Ustashadom represents the innermost kernel of the Croatian state. It is tightly and
indivisibly bound with the history of the first revolutionary days and to their essential
element. Therefore, it is no wonder that the opponents of the young state are fighting
with all their energy against Ustashadom and the Black Legion, as its representative in
Bosnia. In the face of his knightly figure, which remains with us, we assert our rights and
swear now as in his lifetime:

'Immortal among the immortals! Gather them and us in the Legion so that our souls will
watch and hover over all; forward to the stars of your Ustasha! . . .

'We call to you as you to us at the head of the Romania: Arise, ye dead, arise, thou, our
Jure, so that you may command the living from the arcades of immortal Croatian sons,
how to live, fight, and fall for the poglav-nik and Croatia. Stay with us, with your eternally
grateful Black [Legion]. Without you, we are orphans, for none among us has been so
worthy, so famous, and so great as you, our beloved Jure. . . .' "

He said of himself that he was "an uncompromising fighter for the principles on which
the young NDH state is built." When he came to Banja Luka to visit Dr Viktor Gutic, he
told him exuberantly: "The Trebevic Society thanks you, dear brother Viktor. You are the
head and soul of everything. If you could look into our hearts, you would see the old
flame that the poglavnik first ignited and which you, Viktor, have spread in all of Croatia.
We are always prepared for the poglavnik, for you, and for the NDH."

When the commissariat was dissolved, the press of Sarajevo wrote: "The commissioners
exercised extremely prudently the power that they had taken over in a very difficult and
critical situation, so that one cannot imagine

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

that anyone could have done it better. By the fact that our great poglavnik appointed them
as his commissioners, he again proved how well he knows how to find the right man for
every post. Without worry he was able to bequeath to our two leaders the power in our
province; still today, having left their posts, they have left behind countless evidence that
they were completely competent in their tasks. In a word: they had knowledge and
understanding. ..."

The truth of these remarks is attested to in the following testimonies and press accounts:
Zorka Krajica, Kosta Curcic, Nikola Maljkovic, Abaz Ljubuncic, Ela Petrovic, Dragutin
Savkovic, Mustafa Kurto, Dr. Mahmud Mehmedbasic, et al. Newspaper exerpts: "Osvrt"
Nr. 7; Sarajevski novi list Nr. 80, 77, 93, 3, 69, 48, 247, 358, 584, 49, 30, 372, 22, 6, 7, 9, 17,
4, 281, 73, 13, 353, 27, 8, 72, 379, 582, 581, 558, 427, 644, 473; Hrvatski list of 4 May 1941,
21 April 1941, 3 May 1941, 7 May 1941, 9 May 1941, 5 May 1941, and 1 May 1941.

According to the judgment of the High Court for Bosnia and Hercego-vina, Brale Bozidar
was found guilty in Sarajevo under the documentation number Kv: 1145 of having
committed the following crimes:

He is guilty:

1. of having cooperated politically with the enemy during the war in Sarajevo by using his
position as member of the action committee of the Croatian nationalists to hold a
meeting with the German colonel Becker, at which the demands of this committee were
presented and the German commander was asked to make it possible for this committee
to have contact with the "poglavnik,** whereupon the enemy placed vehicles, weapons,
and travel passes at the disposal of the members of this committee;

2. of having committed war crimes during the enemy occupation by being responsible for
—while in Sarajevo as a member of the "NDH commission for the former Drinska
Banovina," and instigator, organizer, and commander—the arrest, torture, compulsory
emigration, and transport of Serbs and Jews to the concentration camps, as well as all
those inhabitants of the former Drinska Banovina who were known to be freedom-loving
citizens and opponents of the occupiers and of the Ustasha; also by carrying out
compulsory conversions of Serbs and Jews to the Roman-Catholic faith and revoking the
citizenship of these people and by organizing the plundering of the private property of the
disenfranchized and expelled Serbs and Jews and carrying it out in his position as chief of
the Napretkova Society in Sarejevo;

3. of having committed war crimes during the enemy occupation in his role as functionary
of the terrorist Ustasha apparatus, by also being directly the propagator of murders and of
the arrests and tortures of the inhabitants of the area of Pale and other areas of eastern
Bosnia.

Interrogation of the Ustasha lieutenant Zlatan Mesic before the investigating authorities
in Sarajevo on 20 August 1945:

Documents on Massacres under the Leadership of Priests 179 What do you know about
Brale Bozidar?

In 1941, when I came to Sarajevo with Vokic, I met with Brale as the Ustasha
representative for Bosnia and Hercegovina; he and Hakija Hadzic were representatives of
the poglavnik. Brale's secretary was Zvonko Dusper, who lived in Zagreb on Palmoticeva
Street (his sister Zora knows the exact address), while Hakija's secretary, Trebinjac, later
secretary to the District Leader in Travnik, where he founded the organization "Young
Moslems" and then went over to the partisans. These two might know something about
Brale's work.

In 1941 he came to Vokic one month after the latter had become Director of the Railroad,
and demanded a purge among the employees in the administration. He said he knew that
there were still Serbs, Jews, and communists in the employ. When he got nowhere with
Vokic, he turned to Hladnik, the functionary in the directorship of the Ustasha security
service. Among his closest associates were Hladnik, Jilek, Rados, Hraski, and Zubic.

I am familiar with his speeches, which were so extreme that the press would not even
print them. For example, I was present in 1943 in Livno when Brale held a speech on the
occasion of the celebration of 13 June, in which he attacked the Serbs and the partisans
and demanded the annihilation of them and their families. Because his speeches were so
extreme, he became popular in the extremist Ustasha circles. He held all these speeches
in his role as priest.

In 1943 Brale went from Sarejevo to Zagreb, where he stayed a short time and then to
Maribor. I heard—but I don't remember anymore from whom—that in Maribor he was
appointed by the Gestapo and that he always wore a German uniform in Zagreb. I don't
know anything further about him.
Zlatan Mesic

Frater Petar Berkovic, pastor and deacon in Drnis, behaved similarly to Brale who
systematically carried out Ustasha directives in Bosnia and by murder solved the
"National Question" in the NDH. From the report of the Commission for Determining the
Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers, document F4502/I, and also from the
testimony of the eyewitnesses Joze Drezga, prison guard from Drnis, Mate Primorac, civil
servant from Drnis, Stevo Vukasin, civil servant from Drnis, Petar Nakusic from Drnis,
Spiro Skocic, son of Ilaja, farmer from Nos Kalik, and Simo Loncar, son of the deceased
Lazo from Siveric, we learn the following:

Frater Petar Berkovic, as Ustasha functionary, together with the well known bloodhound,
the field-camp director Juro Marojevic, is responsible for arrests, abuses, and murders of
the Serbs in Drnis and the vicinity. The arrested individuals were brought out of the
community jails in Drnis and put into court prisons and from there were deported
individually or

180 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

in groups in the direction of Knin, where they disappeared without a trace. Thus Dusan
Njegus, the son of the deceased Mate, Cedo Andric, son of Toda from Drnis, Ranko
Beader, the son of the deceased Stjepan, Niko Janjic, son of the deceased Marko from
Kricak, and Kosta Jovic, son of the deceased Jovo, were taken from the local jail to the
court prison on 7 June 1941 and then deported on 14 June 1941 by the car belonging to the
Mijanovic brothers in the direction of Knin, where they disappeared. Ranko Beader was
sentenced especially harshly, and the prison guard of the county jail in Drnis, Joze
Drezga, secretly brought a doctor in to him, Dr. Marko Skelin. Other prisoners were:
Jovan Milos, the former policeman Mile Ivaz, Mile Loncar, and Jovo Njegic. They, too
were taken from the local jails to the court prisons on 8 June 1941 and on 16 June 1941
were deported by car in the direction of Knin.

On 17 July 1941, Stevo Vukasin, son of the deceased Petar, and Vojko were arrested. They
were, however, released again on 27 July 1941. Jovo Petranovic, called Juvelja, was
arrested at the same time and released again; but at the second arrest of the Serbs, he was
killed. Simo Colak, Mrden Mihovil, Niko and Branko Jovic, and Ranko Vukasin were
arrested together with Stevo Vukasin and Vojko.

Mirko Kuvac, a teacher from Tepljuh, was taken to jail only because he asked that Vjeko
Sirinic be released. The Ustashe beat him in the face, stomped him with their feet, and
said that if he demands the release of Vjeko Sirinic, then he must be just as much a
communist as the latter.

On 6 June 1941, Frater Petar Berkovic, along with Marojevic and the other bloodhounds
Dogan and Ivica Matkovic, came into the house of Loncar Simo, son of the deceased Rade
from Siveric, took his son Kosta along and locked him in the court prison in Drnis, where
he stayed for 15 days; there they tortured him and finally took him to an unknown place,
where they must have thrown him in a gorge.

[...]

From the personal diary of the priest Duric it is clear that he prepared the arrival of the
Ustashe. He can be viewed as the inspiration of the bloodbath against the innocent Serb
people. From numerous testimonies made to our investigating organs by witnesses of the
bloody crimes of the Catholic priest and Ustasha camp director Antun Duric, who in 1941
and during the first half of 1942 committed criminal terror in the county of Dvor on the
Una river, it is clear that he personally took part in the murders of Serbs, carried out
arrests, and sent numerous Serbs to the camp; with the Ustasha military units, he set
Serb villiages on fire. The fact that he as direct instigator is mainly responsible for these
crimes, is clear from his diary:

Documents on Massacres under the Leadership of Priests 181

On 14 April 1941, I drove my car from Divusa to Kostajnica and from there continued with
the train to Zagreb in order to take care of necessary things in the re-organization and to
assume authority for the whole county of Dvor. There I received a written decree, through
which I was appointed Ustasha authority for the county of Dvor. On Wednesday 16 April,
I returned from Zagreb. In the evening I met immediately with the leaders of all the
villages, and we agreed on everything.

On 17 April, I went to Dvor, where I met 80 civil servants and employees.

On Monday, I again went to Dvor. On this day (28 April) 18 Croatian Ustashe from
Kostajnica came with two offcers to Dvor and set up quarters in the school. On the same
day, they arrested a Serb policeman who had been placed at our disposal and who
contradicted them, then a toll officer and a former mail carrier, the retired Mladen
Durman, and then an even greater number of prominent Serbs. Also Dragan Kosier,
community notary from Divusa, was arrested and taken to Dvor.

In the same night, the guard of the Croatian Ustasha was attacked at the school. But since
no one was recognized, the Ustashe shot four of the prisoners in their place: the toll
officer, the policeman, Mladen Durman, and Vaso Mrkobrada, a retired notary.

On Tuesday 29 April, I was in Dvor and saw the bodies, which were buried on the same
day at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. . . "

Testifying against Duric, the eyewitnesses of his crimes from the village Dabici, in the
county of Dvor on the Una said:

We know very well that the priest Antun Duric from Divusa took over the control in the
county of Dvor in April 1941. Thereafter, he went from community to community and
swore in the civil servants and employees. At the same time, he issued the edict that
everything in Cyrillic script had to be removed from schools and other establishments and
replaced with signs in Latin script.

We remember that the Ustasha camp director, Father Duric, on 14 April 1941, along with
Mato Stankovic, came by car to Zrinj. He immediately gathered all the residents and
informed them that the Ustasha had to be organized and that he would help them with it.
He immediately appointed Franjo Jakovac as Ustasha field-camp director, Franjo Jukic as
Ustasha adjutant, and Martin Marakovic as troop leader and promised to send the
necessary weapons. Then in the community of Zrinj, the notary Nikola Gajic was replaced
by the Ustasha Juraj Stipic. Then camp director and priest Duric swore in all offcials in
the community of Zrinj, fired the Serb community officials, and put Ustashe from Zrinj in
their place. When the residents of Zrinj complained that they were too crowded in their
village, Father Duric spread his arms out in the direction of the Serb villages and said:
"Take whatever you need. I will help you with anything you need." Afterward the Ustashe
bought ropes from Jakovac's store and had them cut up for tying

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

up the Serbs in the vicinity of Zrinj. They all bought padlocks, so that every resident of
Zrinj would have chains and padlocks. On the order of Father Duric, they then began to
arrest all the people from the villages of Ro-gulje, Brdani, and from the surrounding
villages. They kept them for several days in jail and tortured them there in various ways. .
..

On 14 May 1941, the Ustashe from Zrinj, upon the order of the camp director and priest
Duric, arrested 14 Serbs from the village of Rogulje, who were all prominent people: Teso
Kravajica, Bozo Medic, Duro Jugovic, Stojan Jugovic, and others, who were taken to
Koprivnica and never returned. At the same time, the Ustashe carried out house searches
in the Serb houses in the neighboring villages of the community of Zrinj and took lard,
meat, grain, liquor, and small animals, which they took to Zrinj. They used these things in
part for the banquets, and gave part of them to the Ustasha camp director and priest Duric
in Divusa.

On 19 December 1941, the Ustashe came on the orders of the Ustasha camp director and
priest Duric and surrounded the village of Rogulje, where they captured twelve men and
two women, took them to jail in Zrinj, and there tortured them in a beastial manner. They
stripped the women and forced them to ride through the whole village singing. They
chopped the men into pieces alive as they were riding on a donkey.

On 29 January 1942, the Ustasha, on the orders of the Ustasha camp director and priest
Duric, came into the village of Segestin and carried out a massacre in this villiage, killed
180 people, plundered the village completely, and set fire to a fourth of the village.
On 26 February 1942, the Ustasha, on the orders of the Ustasha camp director and priest
Duric, surrounded the village of Rogulje, burned it completely down, plundered it, and
killed 14 people. This time they also plundered the village of Sam Draga, destroyed it
completely by fire, and arrested Duro Petosevic, whom they took to Dvor, and killed him
there.

It is also known to us that the Ustasha, on orders of the Ustasha camp director and priest
Duric, forced their way into the village of Goricka, plundered it completely, and captured
117 people in order to send them to Kostajnica to the camp, where they since disappeared;
they took a great part of the animals; they were accustomed to leaving the small animals
in Divusa with the Ustasha camp director and priest Duric, who turned them over to his
Ustashe.

We also wish to add something that we forgot along the way: The Ustasha camp director
Duric sent the Ustasha chief Bujic to the Orthodox Church in Segestin to plunder it; they
took all the valuable objects to the priest Duric.

Similar reports about the priest of crime, Duric, were given by the eyewitnesses Duro
Coric and Mile Sase, who said among other things:

In the fall of 1941, the priest Duric came to the village of Uncani, where he said the
following things in his speech: "Anyone who feels he is a Serb should move beyond the
Drina, because we don't have any place here for Serbs. This is a Croatian Ustasha state,
and anyone who considers himself decent should convert to Catholicism, because only
that can be his salvation; you see how the Serbs travel to Belgrade in rivers and streams,
and that will happen to anyone who considers himself a Serb; every Ustasha has orders to
drive out those who live in the villages along the Una. These pigs should better float down
the Una than to live on its banks." His lieutenants Imbro Kostelac and Milan Vrstan, the
Ustasha murderers, acted accordingly.

We remember that in the summer of 1941 this same priest gave the Ustashe the orders to
lynch us, i.e., about 80 Serbs from the village of Uncani, whom they had taken hostage;
the executioners were his sworn Ustashe Pero Mutavdzija, Jure Spicnagel, Matija Stipic,
among others; they beat Nikola Brdar most, whose ribs they hit so hard that he still
suffers from the severe results today, as do Dmitar Brdar and Petar Jankovic.

This same priest Duric had Duro Coric, Milan Coric, Bozo Buinjac, Nikola Rabljenovic,
Dragan Cmobrnja, Dragan Rabljanovic from the village of Kuljani, and Dragan Gvozdic
from Kozibrod arrested; they were tortured in various ways, and Nikola Rabljenovic was
killed on the orders of the priest Duric.

The eyewitness Nikola Dabin from the village of Gornja Orahovica in the county of Dvor
on the Una testifies:
I know that the priest Duric in the summer of 1941 personally in his residence in Divusa
shot Mladen Filipovic from the Bosanski Ravnice in the county of Bosanski Novi, that he
tortured and killed him. This same priest, along with the head of the community of
Divusa, gave orders for the mass shooting of the Serbs in Volinja at Rovinje; then he
ordered the remaining Serbs from the vicinity of Divusa to dig graves and bring quicklime
to scatter on the dead. I know that he roamed through the neighboring villages with the
Ustasha colonel Mrak and deployed his spies for the Ustasha state; specifically those
Ustashe who were the most ruthless opponents of the Serb people during the NDH.

Until July 1942, the priest Duric held the function of the Ustasha camp director for the
county of Dvor and after that continued the same activity in Kapela Batrina.

The eyewitness Mirko Vranesevic reports the following about Duric:

... at the six-month celebration of the founding of the NDH, the priest Duric held a speech
in Dvor, where he had gathered all the residents, and

184 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

admonished them that they had three possibilities of proceeding against the Serbs in the
county of Dvor: conversion, deporting, or purging with the iron broom (the gun). They
were to choose from these possibilities.

The above-named priest emphasized again and again that a hundred Serbs would be killed
if even one Ustasha Croat would come to harm. He had this announced in Dvor to the
accompaniment of a drum roll.

This same priest Duric plundered the Orthodox Church of St. Dorde in Dvor, which he
entered without removing his head covering. He took a golden chalice, a candelabra of
silver, and the vestments of the priests.

[...]

In the State Commission for the Identification of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers, under document number 12861 there is a statement by Milka Skobic, the wife of
Dorde, born in Sarajevo, who tells the following about the crimes of the priest Eugen
Gujic.

My brother-in-law Miladin Minic was an Orthodox priest in Biljesevo in Zenica. At the


end of April 1941, I visited him. In the night of 27 April, four men came to his house, of
whom one introduced himself as Eugen Gujic, representative of Poglavnik Ante Pavelic,
former Catholic priest in Busovaca. With him were Nezir Becirevic, Saban Sabanovic, and
a Herce-govac whose first name I do not know. They were all from the vicinity of Lasva. I
did not know them personally, but I learned their names from any sister, the wife of the
deceased Miladin Minic. They arrested Miladin immediately and threatened us that they
would come back and kill us if we left the house. In all this, they hit and abused my
mother and my sister, whom Gujic struck on the back with his gun and broke two of her
ribs. Mother was hit, too. Then they plundered the house and took with them all the
valuables they could find. They took Miladin away and locked me and my mother Vasilija
Skobic, my sister Divna, and her child in a room. Immediately after they had left the
house, we heard a shot. From our house, they went into the Orthodox Church which they
likewise plundered. Then they came back and with the intention of killing us, they threw
a hand grenade into the house, which, however, did not explode, because they didn't know
how to handle it. Then they disappeared again. In the next morning, we left the house,
since we were not being watched, and in front of the house, we found our dead Miladin.

In the plundering of the house, they took the following things: three gold rings, 4,800
Dinar in silver, and a sum—I don't know exactly how much—in bank notes, a gold
fountain pen, the riding equipment belonging to the deceased Miladin, and several other
things. I do not know the value of the items.

This was also confirmed by Divna Minic, the wife of the deceased Mila-din, in her
statement that she gave before the State Commission for the Identification of Crimes of
the Occupiers and their Helpers under document number 12861. Among other things, she
said the following:

. . . Back then I knew what would happen to Miladin, and I asked the priest Eugen Gujic
not to kill us. I told him he could take all our things. I knelt before him and folded my
hands, but he slapped me and said that he didn't want anything to do with women.

The priest Mate Mogus incited national and religious intolerance between Serbs and
Croats along the Udbina. As a long-time Ustasha, he helped with the disarming of the
Yugoslav army in 1941 and organized the Ustasha militia along the Udbina. Mogus was
the Ustasha authority for the Udbina area and in this function issued the orders for the
arrest of the Serbs, and in doing so he was simultaneously responsible for the murders of
many people. In the trial, he gave a confession about his participation in these crimes,
which was confirmed by the testimony of Nikica Momcilovic from Vrebic and Nikica
Majstorovic from Udbina:

Mogus often held meetings with the leading Ustasha murderers; at these meetings, they
planned the elimination of the innocent and poor Serbian people, and after every meeting
came arrests and murders, which were decided in advance. This was the case with a
Montenegran who was arrested on Mogus' orders and was killed in Lovinac by Ustasha
thieves along with the miller Bozo Mrkobrada from Mekinjar and seven other persons
from various villages of the province of Udbina.

Thus several times 60 people were arrested and killed. In three actions, about 20 people
were killed in Mornara and in Gaj on the island of Korija, another 10 in the gorges on
Krbavsko Polje and 15 in the cemetery at Korija. All this happened while the Ustasha
authority was in the Udbina area and according to his plan and at his command.

After the persecution, the flight, and the murdering of the Serbs, Mate Mogus came to
their wasted farms, which he and other Ustashe in his command plundered. An example
is the plundering of the business of the merchant Cveticanin from Visuci.

He spared no words nor violence in rebaptizing the Serbian people. On 13 June 1941, the
name day of the Ustasha poglavnik, he spoke publicly at a mass meeting in Udbina: "We
will move the Serbian people out of Croatia and eliminate them, and I will be happy when
I can divide up Serbian soil among the Croats. The Ustashe will fight mercilessly and will
eliminate everyone who is not true to the independent state of Croatia and its poglavnik
and founder Ante Pavelic. People, look at these sixteen brave Ustashe, who have 16,000
bullets and will kill 16,000 Serbs with them. Then

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

we will divide Mutilicko and Krbavsko Polje among ourselves like brothers."

After this speech, the Ustasha bandits set about to convert their commander's words into
deeds and began their mass murders of the Serbs in the province of Udbina.

The priests Petar Sivjanovic and Jakob Marjanovic prepared the arrests of Serbs in
Grubisno Polie. They suggested to the Ustasha emigrant Ivaca Saric to come to Grubisno
Polie with a company of Ustashe because there was allegedly a threat of a Serb rebellion.
It was said they intended to revolt on St. Dorde's day.

In the indictment from the provincial court at Daruvar on 22 October 1945, the document
number 424/45 states:

Petar Sivjanovic was the instigator organizer, and aided in the mass, arrests, murders,
compulsory resettlements, the transport to the concentration camps, and the compulsory
conversions to the Catholic faith.

Following the instructions and directives of Dr. Lujo Stahuljak, a former attorney in
Grubisno Polje and deputy in the Interior Ministry of the NDH, at the end of April 1941 he
along with the priest Jakob Marjanovic composed a letter about the establishment of the
Ustasha authority in the county of Grubisno Polie. This letter was delivered by a certain
Horvat to Franjo Saric, the father of the well known Ustasha emigrant Ivica Saric. Ivica
Saric was chief of the Ustasha police in Zagreb. In the letter it was stated that the Serbs of
the county of Grubisno Polie were planning an uprising on the day of St. Dorde. On the
basis of this letter, Ivica Saric, Dido Kvaternik, and several other officers came on 26 April
1941 in a special train from Zagreb accompanied by a police troop of about 120 men. Ivica
Saric, Dido Kvaternik, and the other officers immediately went to the pastoral office in
Grubisno Polie and reported to the pastor Sivjanovic. They said they were coming to fetch
all the Serbs in the county of Grubisno Polie, since they were preparing an uprising on the
day of St. Dorde. Thereupon Dr. Lujo Stahuljak and the county supervisor Zorislav Mikic
were brought in, who issued the arrest orders for the Serbs. They then went into the
building of the county offices, where they continued their work. Thereupon 504 Serbs
were arrested and on the next day sent to the camp Danica in Kopriv-nica. Later they were
taken to the camp on the island of Pag and finally to Jadovno, where they were all killed
except for a few exceptions. Sivjanovic admonished the Serbs to convert to the Catholic
faith, and for this purpose he also made propaganda outside the church. He led them to
believe that they then would not be killed. Although he demanded a steep tax, he was
successful in converting over 100 Serbs to the Catholic faith, who, however, were later
taken away anyway.

[...]

In Hercegovina right after the capitulation of the former Jugoslav state, the Ustasha
carried out mass murders at the beginning of May 1941 in the vicinity of Mostar Stolac,
Capljina, Bilece, Nevesinje, and in other places. The priests were the incitors of a deep
hatred of the Serbian people and they themselves took part in the persecutions and
murders.

Among them, the deacon of Stolac, Marko Zovko, stands out, who was then in the
Ustasha committee and in this function was responsible for the terrible massacres that
were committed in the county of Stolac. The Commission for the Determination of
Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers says the following in document 12846:

In 1941 he received the troops of the occupiers enthusiastically and with open arms and
tried to convince the people gathered around him of the justice of the Hitler war and his
unconquerable power. He jubilantly embraced Italian fascists, housed them in his
parsonage, and hosted them royally.

Within a short time, he became the religious instigator, organized the Ustashe, and
helped them in the formation of the Ustasha army. For this purpose, he, as pastor,
frequently held consultations with respected Croatian farmers from the neighboring
villages of the county of Stolac. He tried to trick them with lies and to make them afraid
of the danger threatening them from the Serbs if the latter were not liquidated promptly.

He carried out the mass compulsory baptisms of the Serbs by promising them that the
baptism certificates were a guarantee for saving their lives. Nevertheless, the Serbs later
fell victim to the terror and the violence of the Ustashe. He continued his agitation when
200 people were killed in the gorge in Vidovo Polje. And without thinking even for a
moment of what had happened the day before, the next day, with a newspaper in his
hand, he held a speech on the market square about the unstoppable encroachment of the
Germans in Russia and about the imminent end of the war.

He declared that they had done well to kill so many Serbs promptly, because otherwise no
Croats would have been left alive. When he had made clear to everyone which side was
winning, he gathered all the bitter enemies of progress and of patriotism around him and
in Stolac received the Ustasha minister Frkovic and the Ustasha General Begic, as well as
high German commanders.

At the meeting with the well known bloodhounds, he adopted the words of Minister
Frkovic and repeated before everyone present that there dare be no more Serbs in Croatia.

With agents and denunciators of the Italian OVRA, the German Gestapo, and the Ustasha
Security Service, he organized the arrests and internments of patriots in prisons and
camps. He did all this insidiously and carefully and in doing so acted as if he had nothing
to do with it and knew nothing about it.

According to the testimony of Desimir Mihic, which is in the docu-

188 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

ments of the State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and
their Helpers, Marko Zovko "consoled" his newly converted faithful as follows: "It was
not our intention to save your lives. History teaches us that there were people in former
times who disappeared, and the Serbian people will do the same. When we converted you
to the Catholic faith, we had the intention of saving your souls."

The Catholic priest Don Ilija Tomas, pastor in the village of Klepci, will remain in the
darkest memory of the Serbian people. The State Commission for the Determination of
Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers says the following about him in document
12846:

At the time of Jugoslavia's capitulation, he was pastor in Klepci. He distinguished himself


here in the disarming of the army and in the abuse of Yugoslav soldiers who were in the
vicinity of Capljina and his parish.

He placed himself at the disposal of the Ustasha quarters in Capljina and was one of the
main organizers of the massacre of 1941. Cleverly he was successful in organizing the
unruly Ustashe; he himself was named the deputy in the tobacco station in Capljina,
where he immediately distinguished himself in the persecution of orthodox officials and
workers. When most of the preparations were made and the Ustashe organized, Don Ilija
Tomas took over the leadership. He gave his blessing, and the annihilation of the Serbs
could begin.

The Ustashe murdered every day. The Neretva was colored blood red every day, and the
ravines in the Bivolje mountains and in Opuzen were full of innocent victims. Every day
Don Ilija made new suggestions at the meetings of the Ustasha in Capljina concerning the
destruction of the Serbs. In addition to these meetings, he also held farmers' meetings
with significant Ustasha murderers. In Tasovcici, he came daily to Mara Cokjat and over a
good meal and drinks they discussed "whom they would kill this evening." They put out a
list of people who were to be killed on the current day or in the night. When the Serbs
recognized that their destruction was planned, they converted to the Catholic faith upon
his bidding. Don Ilija accepted the new converts in the church of his parish, so he could
increase its size with the new members. In July 1941, he held a speech in the church,
which was filled with Catholic and Orthodox citizens, and said the following: "We are
preparing now a new field, because we wish to sow a new fruit, but hear well: As long as
this new field is not completely rid of weeds and as long as it is not free of them, this field
will not bear the fruit that it should bear." This was an allusion to the Ustasha state and
the Serbian people and was saying essentially that without the annihilation of the Serbs,
no prosperity was possible. And although the whole population of Capljina and the
surrounding villages had converted to the Catholic faith, in July 1941 women, children,
and babies were deported in rail cars to Capljina

and from there to Surmanci to the gorge into which they were all thrown alive. Don Ilija,
full of joy that there were no more people in the villages, and after he had furnished his
house with all sorts of plundered objects, spent peaceful nights with the teacher Lujza
Spari from Dracevo, while he got drunk and awarded his coworkers with things that he
had stolen from the poor people. Every evening in the company of his lady friend school
teacher, with whom he was also sleeping, he would have a festive meal. They celebrated
their actions and spoke about how many Serbs they had killed on that day.

Don Ilija had a motorcycle. In ten minutes he was in Capljina, where he received new
instructions for his work and where in the Ustasha quarters, he could receive the
information collected in the foreign service on how one could most quickly and
thoroughly eliminate the Serbs.

On 1 May 1942, the partisans attacked Prebilovci. When Don Ilija noted that things were
getting rather hot for him, he took a truck and along with everyone who had murdered in
Trusina, Nevesinje, Capljina, and other places, he drove to Bekija. After he arrived there,
he organized the gangs for the battle against the partisans and promised them that there
would be meat for the eagles and the ravens. Fully baffled by the fact that he was having
such great trouble with the defense of his parish, he said: "We should have killed them all
in 1941, then we would have nothing to fear now."

In the commissariat for Refugees in Belgrade, a great number of Serbian refugees


reported on the barbaric behavior of the Ustashe in this area. Here we present an excerpt
from the testimony of Desimir Mihic:

It is hard to remember the enormous number of victims, and it is also not possible to
describe the horror that they experienced before the Ustasha beasts gave them the death
blow. But we figure that in the county of Stolac, over 4,000 completely innocent Serbs
were killed. Primarily they killed men over sixteen, but in many cases, they also did not
hesitate to kill women and small children in the cradle. A Croatian nurse in the hospital at
Stolac told me that in the battles in Brekovici where she was serving, she saw mountains
of dead children who had been killed in beastly ways. Why? Who taught them to hate
their innocent comrades, their blood brothers, so horribly? In my opinion they were
people like the one on whose door I knocked in Christ's name (Don Ilija Tomas is meant).

He forced about ten unhappy brothers from the village of Klepci and other villages nearby
to convert to the Catholic Church, then gave them communion and brought them to the
school, where the Ustashe were waiting for them and murdered them in a beastial way.

Other refugees from Capljina also described the criminal character of Ilija Tomas:

190 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

On 26 June 1941 in Capljina, there was an appeal to the Serbs to convert to the Roman
Catholic faith. For this, they were promised that they would be given equal status with the
Croats and would not be persecuted. The Serbs who were in prison were promised that
they would be able to go home after the conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. Since at
that time all male Serbs had been thrown into prison and many had also been killed, only
women and children had remained at home. Many women after this announcement went
to the branch offices of the county authorities and declared that they wished to convert to
the Roman Catholic faith in order thus to save their men, sons, and brothers from death.
This did them no good, however. The Serbs were killed anyway. Right from the beginning,
the Serbian Orthodox Church in Capljina was closed as were the Serbian Orthodox
churches in the villages of Klepci and Gabela. On the orders of the Ustasha, the Serbs
went to the Roman Catholic church. But first the Ustasha had plundered all the Orthodox
churches completely.

Three days after Easter 1942, Don Ilija Tomas led the Ustasha from the village Klepci into
the village of Prebilovci. There was a fight between Ustashe and Serbs in which Don Ilija
died. Out of revenge for his death, the Ustasha prepared a further massacre of the Serbs.
... In addition to Don Ilija Tomas, the Frater Tugomir from Capljina was also prominent in
the persecution of the Serbs.

From the report of the Ustasha priest Eugen Beluhan, "The Pastor from Neretva—Don
Ilija Tomas," published in Hrvatski Narod on 25 July 1942:

In Hercegovina, the parishes were divided among outside priests and Franciscans. Each
church, each cloister, especially in the mixed religions, looks like a tower, a bunker, or a
plant nursery of faiths or of Croatiandom. Shortly before the present war, outside priests
also made themselves prominent. . . .

Shortly thereafter, Don Ilija was named chief deputy of the Ustasha for the whole area.
He too continued his daily work and first of all performed his pastoral duties as a Catholic
pastor. Therefore early in the morning, shortly after eight o'clock, on his motorcycle he
visited his parish. Then he went to work as deputy. ... He gave aid and recommendations,
so that the right people got into the right positions. He worked with the Germans, who
also supported him. . . .

In the county of Stolac along with Don Marko Zovko, the initiator of the Ustasha
murders, Don Ivan Raguz, a priest from Stolac, was also prominent. About him, Savko
Ivanovic, the son of the deceased Ahmet, said before the investigative authorities on 3
March 1945 under the document number 169/45 the following:

Already during the time of old Yugoslavia, Don Ivan was known to one as a follower of
Pavelic and the Ustasha movement. Right after the capitulation of Yugoslavia, he became
one of the most important Ustasha functionaries in our town. He was always in the
company of Franjo Smolo, Don Marko Zovko, Ilija Raguz, Ivo Fabijanec, and Omerbeg
Rizvanbegovic— known Ustasha functionaries—with whom he also conferred. I
remember precisely how Don Ivan in April 1941 approached the conquered troops
returning from Albania and taunted them with the most despicable names: "Where did
you march off to, you cowards? You didn't need to go anyplace to fight with the great axis.
Get on home. To hell with you!" and such.

Two days before the Ustasha slaughtered the Serbs, Don Ivan said on the street near his
house: "There's going to be a slaughter. Well take care of them." And indeed within two
days all the Serbs were killed. After the murder of the Serbs, he said that some
communists had appeared who would also have to pay. He constantly worked with the
above mentioned Ustashe and in the cafe of Salko Cimic where I was present, he publicly
bragged that he along with the Ustasha would solve all the problems and that he would
take care of the Serbs most promptly, etc. After the massacre of the Serbs, he told Cvija,
the widow of Gaso Krunic (she lives today in Borovo): "We shouldn't leave even one of
their children, so not a single germ would remain of this brood."

I forgot to mention that on the day after the murder of the Serbs, he raised the flag and
said: "How nice everything is now. Now everything is OK, the way it is supposed to be.
Now we have houses to live in and roasts and everything else to eat."

After the occupation of some Russian cities, he invited his friends, the above-mentioned
Ustashe, to a dinner.

He threatened to kill my wife because she did not raise the flag as the German troops
were marching in. He announced that all Serbs and communists would be killed as soon
as the Germans were finished with the Russians. In general, he was known in our village
as a high Ustasha and as the instigator of crimes. He was one of the main initiators of the
gruesome deeds.

The Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers
shows the following about Don Ivan Raguz under document number K 846:
At the time of the massacres of the Serbian people, he admonished the Serbs to convert to
the Catholic faith; this was the only chance of their survival. His goal, however, consisted
of getting the people to stay around so that the Ustasha could completely eliminate them.
He publicly sanctioned the actions of the Ustasha and celebrated whenever there was a
massacre someplace. In his sermons, he incited the Croatian people from the pulpit to
shed the blood of the Serbs. He portrayed Pavelic as the legal and

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

true leader of the Croatian people, and he depicted the Ustasha movement as a movement
that all Croats should join. This was the proper route that would lead them all together
with the "poglavnik" into a happier future.

The official of the Church court in Plaski, Jovan Trbojevic, reported on the terror of the
priest Morber, who had been a member of the culture group in Gracac. Among other
things, he testified as follows:

The massacre in the village of Stikada was carried out by the Ustasha from the village of
Gudura with the help of the then Roman Catholic priest Morber from Gracac. On the day
of the massacre, the pastor drove his car from Gracac to Stikada and called the people to
the inn "Stikadske Bare." There they were to convert to the Roman Catholic faith and then
would have to fear no persecution. The Serbs believed the pastor and gathered in great
numbers at the named spot. Anyone who did not go voluntarily was forced to come.
Nevertheless, some of the Serbs were able to save themselves by fleeing from the village,
because they suspected that a massacre was at hand. When the Serbs had been gathered,
the militarily armed Ustasha from the village of Gudura carried out the massacre of them.
Upon excavating the bodies in 1942, it was learned that some must have been killed with
axes and wooden hammers, since their skulls had been crushed with blunt instruments.
Some must have been buried alive and standing up.

{Archives of the Commissariat for Refugees: A IX., Nr. 4365)

The State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers came to the following conclusion in the case of Frater Silvije Frankovic from
Bugojno—document 12846:

During the massacres of the Serbs in 1941 Frater Silvije Frankovic from Bugojno was seen
constantly in the company of the worst Ustasha murderers and of Ustasha officers. Before
the inn of Pero Mrsa in Bugojno, he met the Ustasha captains Bozo Krizanac, Perica
Kutlesa, and Ivo Jerle (from whose leather coat a knife could be seen). These men asked
him laughingly: "Reverend, when will you be hearing our confessions?" Frater Silvije
answered: "It is still too soon for you. Once you have taken care of everything, then you
can come and I will hear your confessions." When Markica Pazin and Milan Sesun
converted to the Catholic faith in 1941, Frater Silvije said: "Too bad that we didn't kill the
Moslems first and then the Serbs." When Branko Ustra, the county supervisor in
Bugojno, told him he killed fourteen people, he replied: "When you have killed forty, 1
will hear your confession and forgive you everything."

As in Bosnia and in Hercegovina, a portion of the priests in Dalmatia also supported the
Ustasha crimes. While the Ustashe were carrying out their massacres of the Serbs on the
borders of Dalmatia, a portion of the Franciscans in Dalmatia itself were trying to kill the
Serbs living there.

One of these Franciscan pastors was the Frater Vlado Bilobrk in Metkovic, He carried out
the compulsory conversions of the Serbs in Metkovic. He organized the Ustashe along the
Neretva and along with Frater Roko Ronac and Don Martin Gudelj was the initiator of the
Ustasha murders in Metkovic. From the testimonial statements that were given to our
investigative authorities, it is clear that Frater Vlado Bilobrk was a sworn Ustasha since
1935. As an Ustasha deputy for Metkovic in 1941 and as field camp director at the time
when the Serbs were being persecuted and murdered in this area, he was responsible for
these Ustasha crimes. Veljko Petrovic from Tuzla, who lived in Metkovic, testified about
him as follows:

I know Frater Bilobrk well, and I also know that in 1941 as the Orthodox people were
hauled out of Metkovic and killed near Opuzen, he exerted all his strength to force the
Serbian people to convert from the Orthodox to the Catholic faith. One evening in July of
the same year he came to me personally in order to convert me too. In doing so, he
insisted that this was my only chance of survival. Once I understood that they were killing
people every day and that Bilobrk was the driving force in this, I converted to the Catholic
faith.

Similar testimony about the criminal behavior of Frater Vlado Bilobrk was made also by
Drina Unkovac, Dorde Popovac, Stanka Jelic, Ljuba Unkovic, Stanka Dujmovic, Bozo
Petrov, and many others. The witness Veljo Sukoveza, the son of the deceased Tomo from
Metkovic, testified the following about Frater Bilobrk:

I have known Frater Vlado Bilobrk since 1940 when he came to Metkovic as deacon. I am
aware that from the beginning he was a sworn Ustasha. Right after the capitulation of
former Yugoslavia, he became an Ustasha organizer in Metkovic and began to incite
religious and national hatred. He scared the Serbs in Metkovic by telling them they would
be killed if they did not convert to the Catholic faith. Thus many Serbs converted out of
fear, among them Nikola-Dule Buntic, Anda Vukosav with his whole family, and Mice
Popovac.

As one of the main organizers in the persecution of the Serbs in Metkovic, in 1941, right
after the fall of the former Yugoslavia, he assumed the function of the Ustasha field camp
director in Metkovic. During the persecution and the massacres of the Serbs in 1941, Spiro
Mostarac met the same Bi-
PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

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Facsimile of the testimony of the witnesses Mara Petrovic and Margita Repesa about the
influence of the U stash a pastor Vlado Bilobrk.

lobrk in Metkovic and told him: "Frater Vlado, it is not right to persecute people and kill
them. If anyone is guilty, he is to be put into forced labor." Bilobrk replied to him: "We
cannot use an enemy either before us or behind us. The residents of Capljina had to
endure murders among them, and it will be the same for the residents of Metkovic."

Here follows the protocol of the hearing of the witness Mara Petrovic, the wife of Veliko,
and Margita Repesa concerning the crimes of Frater Vlado Bilobrk, the pastor of
Metkovic.

Hearing

Begin: Eight o'clock in the morning.


First witness: Mara Petrovic, wife of Veliko, 56 years old, housewife, grammar school
graduate, Orthodox, Serb, Yugoslav, no previous convictions, not related to the accused.

Second witness: Margita Repesa from Metkovic, 65 years old, no previous convictions, not
related to the accused.

They replied to questions as follows:

We think it was in August of 1941. Frater Vlado Bilobrk was conducting a benediction in
the Catholic Church. The church was overbilled, because

everyone had to attend. We remember quite well that Frater Vlado Bilobrk said during the
sermon: "There are cowards who think it is not right to force the Serbs to convert, and
that it is not humane to kill them. I maintain, however, the opposite. Everyone must
convert to the Catholic faith because no other religion has a right to exist and no one will
live who does not adopt the Catholic faith. To kill a person is no sin; on the contrary, we
must kill everyone who hinders us and must cleanse our land of these.

We swear to the truth of our testimony and confirm it with our signatures.

Mara Petrovic and Margita Repesa

Among the Dalmatian Franciscans, Frater Ivan Eristic was prominent as an unbending
enemy of the Serbian people. He gathered Ustashe around himself with whom he took
part in the disarming of the Yugoslav army in Sinj and there also constructed the Ustasha
camp. He took part in the persecution of the Serbs in Vrlica and transported the prisoners
in two trucks from the village Mahovice to Sinj. Since there were simultaneously
massacres of the Serbs in the county of Livno, he gave the order to transport to Livanjsko
Polje the captive Serbs who had been brought from Vrlica. There they were all killed in
August 1941 and thrown into the coal mine in the village of Prolog. When the Italians
took over in Dalmatia, he joined the militia of the military priests and achieved the rank
of a batallion commander. He took part in the campaigns in the Kozara mountains in
Bosanska Krajina, where his units committed atrocities against the Serbian population.
The State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers made the following conclusions in document Nr. 12799:

The cloister in Sinj was known for its anti-national attitude and for the crimes that were
committed by the brothers of this cloister. Especially the Fraters Ivan Hristic, Stanko-
Litre Milanovic and Jozo Olujic distinguished themselves in these deeds. Upon their
orders, 25 persons were locked in the prison of Sinj, whereby Frater Ivan Hristic was the
main instigator. He threatened to raze Sinj, because it was a breeding ground of
"Communes." On 14 August 1941 in the village Kosuti, 24 champions of the partisans
were captured by the Italians and thrown into the prison. They lay in this prison in Sinj in
the coal bin for eight days without food and water. Frater Ivan Hristic came to the
basement and began to tread on the chained partisans. Full of rage, he pulled a large
revolver and stuck it into the mouth of Borozan, one of the prisoners. He was about to
pull the trigger, but Frater Stanko Milanovic stopped him with the words: "Don't dirty
your hands with this filth. A grave will be dug for them soon enough." Then

PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Frater Hristic kicked Borozan in the face and in doing so knocked two teeth out. The
mobile summary court, which had been formed through a special arrangement from
Pavelic, condemned these 24 people to death. The sentence was carried out on the same
day in the presence of the Fraters Ivan Hristic, Jozo Olujic, and Stanko-Litre Milanovic.
Frater Ivan Glibotic photographed the dead prisoners. Responsible for these murders as
instigators are: Frater Ivan Hristic, Frater Stanko-Litre Milanovic, who was also Ustasha
captain and military priest in the 27th Ustasha battalion in Sinj.

Documentation: The written word of the county authorities in Sinj V.T., Nr. 35, on 26
August 1941 and the copy of the sentence of the mobile summary court on 26 August
1941, Nr. 1/41. Protocol report of 4 May 1945 from Ante Bareza and others. Protocol of the
hearing of the injured: Da-nica Perica, Andro Perica, Zorka Borozan, Katica Markotic,
Dobrila Urlic, Ozic-Pajic Bartula, and others.

Petar Vuletic, son of the deceased Kamilo from Sinj, testified as follows in the protocol
that was recorded by the County Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the
Occupiers and their Helpers from Central Dalmatia in the document 26-Zh. 16919-16934:

In the night of 8 to 9 February 1944, the following citizens were taken hostage in Sinj:
Dusan Tripalo, Darja Bojanic, Jakov Vardar, Ante Stipkovic, Blaz Branic, Ante Bareza,
Jakov Delic, Ante Vujevic, Ivan Acalija, Milena Boko, Petar Pavlovic, Vjera Covic, Stjepan
Milun, Miko Einspieler, Nikola Kulic, and others. Responsible for these arrests are: the
Fratres Ivan Hristic, Stanko Milanovic-Litre, and Krsto Krzanic. The witnesses are: Petar
Vuletic, Ante Vuletic, Ante Bareza, all from Sinj.

Cohort of Vlado Bilobrk in the execution of the mass murders of the Serbs in the Neretva
valley was Don Martin Gudelj. The testimony of Jure Duj-movic from Opuzen, which he
made before the investigative authorities in Metkovic (document 85/46), says the
following:

When the Ustasha rule of terror began in 1941, Don Martin Gudelj was one of the main
organizers. From the pulpit he demanded participation in the Ustasha movement. In the
church he demanded also that ditches be dug under the poplar tree so that the Serbs
could be buried there. This was done, and when the first group had been murdered, Don
Martin gathered people in Opuzen who were to dig more ditches because on the next day
even more Serbs were to be added. Thus Don Martin had 450 Serbs killed. When the
Ustasha butchers were through with their bloody deeds, Don Martin invited them to eat
and hosted them with various drinks, which he had stolen from the people. He showed no
shame in preaching from

the altar that all Serbs and communists had to be killed to the last man, because they
were against God and against the faith. Thus Don Martin solicited young men in Neretva-
Kessel for the Ustasha movement. In the same manner he along with Stanko and Jure
Salacan, Jozo Pecani, and the camp director Jelavic organized banquets for Italian and
later also for German officers. I know that Don Martin, as the Germans were arriving,
told everywhere that they had been sent by God to kill all the communists and that every
proper Croat had to make his contribution by denouncing the partisans and their helpers.
Every Sunday he admonished the people from the altar to fight against the partisans,
whom he characterized as communists. Later, after I had fled, I found out that Martin
Gudelj was constantly in touch with the Germans and that they visited him first when
they came to Opuzen. When the Germans were in Opuzen later, he cooperated with them.

The Italian fascist journalist Conrado Soli published in // Resto di Car-lino on 18


September 1941 the article "Gli Uccellini di Graciaz" (The Birds of Gracac). The heading of
this revealing article refers to the observation of the "Sparrows of Gracac," which is
connected with the legend of St. Francis of Assisi, and refers also to the recollection of the
conversation with the German artillery Major K., with whom he had traveled the territory
of the NDH. The fascist journalist characterized the clero-fascist terror in the NDH as
follows:

The first Franciscan from Assisi made brothers and sisters of the birds and fishes, but his
pupils and spiritual followers in the NDH full of hate slaughter innocent people, brothers
by the father in heaven, brothers by the same language, brothers by the same blood, and
brothers who live on the same mother earth, which nourishes them all in the same
manner: They slaughter, kill, bury living people in ditches, throw dead people in the rivers
and seas or throw them in gorges.

And then (literally):

Ci sono state bande di masacratori che erano e verosilmente lo sono ancora capeggiate ed
inflammate da sacerdoti e da monad cattolici. (There were bands of murderers who were
led and incited by Catholic priests and monks and who are probably still Catholic priests
and monks.)

The original of this issue of the Italian paper is kept in the Archives of the State
Commission for the Determination of Crimes in Belgrade.

198 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Also in Bosnia there was a large number of Catholic priests who supported the Ustasha
bloodbath and themselves took part in it. They supported the efforts of the Ustasha
leadership to solve the "National Problem" in the NDH through murders. They incited
national hatred in the people and provoked them to murder.

This attitude of a part of the Catholic priesthood gave the Ustasha local authorities a
strong hold, since they could use the authority of the priests as an excuse, who sanctioned
the murders out of national-religious reasons. Here follow some typical examples:

Bozo Simlesa in 1941 was a pastor in the village of Listani in the county of Livno. Right at
the beginning, he joined the Ustasha regime and was one of its most active helpers. Later
he held the office of a county supervisor for the county of Livno.

Testimony exists against the pastor Simlesa, in which it is emphasized that at the time of
the massacre in the community of Listani he acclaimed to the people from the altar that
the time had come to annihilate all Serbs in Croatia. The elimination of the Serbs, he said,
was the duty of every Croat for the sake of Croatia and the poglavnik. Such testimony
concerning the pastor Bozo Simlesa comes from the following persons: Lucija Brcic from
Listani, Dizdar Izet from Livno, Janja Lukac from Listani, Stipe Duran from Gajici, Mijo
Curak from Listani, Ivan Suker from Listani, Mate Peric from Donji Rujani, Niko Jureta
from Donji Rujani, and from many others.

Testimony

of Janja Lukac, wife of Jako from the village of Listani, community of

Listani, county of Livno, Roman Catholic.

Re: Don Bozo Simlesa, the former pastor of the parish of Listani.

What can you tell us about Bozo Simlesa, the former pastor of your parish? What did he
do at the time of the NDH? What do you know?

I know that Bozo Simlesa after the capitulation of Yugoslavia and after the founding of
the NDH immediately joined the Ustasha movement as an active worker and in the
churches and in the villages promised all the youth and those who wanted to join the
Ustasha as volunteers that that would be salvation for them, that the Croats had been
without rights before the time of the poglavnik and the Ustasha, and that the poglavnik
was the only one who could preserve the Croatian people and that all others would be
annihilated with the help of the Germans. When in July massacres of Orthodox people
were committed in our community, he told the people during the mass in church that the
time to annihilate all Serbs in Croatia had come. If we Croats would not eliminate them
soon, then they would kill us, and

thus it was necessary that all Croats in our county launch into the destruction of the
Serbs just as the Croats in the other counties had to fulfill their duty to the Croatian
people and to the poglavnik. Furthermore, he said in church that every Croat who
regretted the destruction of the Serbs would meet the same fate and those who went to
Ceprazlije to tip off the Serbs would immediately be thrown into the ravine by the
Ustasha. Anyone who went in the direction of Dalmatia to run an errand would
immediately be killed too and his belongings would be taken from him: "I tell you that,
and I will bear the responsibility for all this." Simlesa told us all that on the day before the
massacre in the church of Listani.

What more can you tell us about Bozo Simlesa? What did he do as Ustasha organizer
where you lived and in the massacres? What do you know?

I also know that after the massacre a Dalmatian appeared and that Simlesa ordered the
Ustasha Gujo to take him away and kill him, which he did. Together with others who had
been picked for the purpose, he was the organizer of the massacre, and when it was
carried out, Simlesa repeatedly went to the guards under his command and forced them
to guard the Orthodox people, who were attempting a revolt. We do not know whether he
killed people himself and threw them into the ditch. But we do know that he and Bozo
Cenan organized the massacres. The two were the main organizers and had the authority
over the property of the Serbs who had been killed. The people had to obey the orders of
Simlesa and Bozo Cenans from Gornji Rujani strictly. The two fled the whole time before
the people's liberation army and retreated along with the Ustashe. I know nothing else
about him.

The testimony, which records my words exactly and which I hereby sign, was read to me.
The above facts are known also to Lucija Brcic, the daughter of the deceased Pero from
Rusani, which she attests to by her signature adjoining mine.

Livno, the 1st of November 1945

Janja Lukac and Lucija Brcic

Testimony

of Stipe Duran, called Pipa, son of the deceased Tomo from the village Cajici, community
of Listani, county of Livno, farmer by profession, Catholic.

What can you tell us about Bozo Simlesa? What did he do at the time of the NDH? What
do you know?

I know that immediately after the capitulation of Yugoslavia and after the founding of the
NDH Simlesa joined the Ustasha movement as an active participant. In the church he
then gave an address to the people saying that all able-bodied men should join the army,
which doesn't accept just everyone,

200 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


• Llrto l/Xl fiodtna.

1 Z JAVA.

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Xati^ Jo prad Curkor l^Jon kacAO da tr<jba »n oaa LJJde kojl Mu u Dalaabolju unlfitlti
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pakuaa. da prcda Qranloo boana 1 tfalaaaoija* a kojl god doda la DAlaaaolJa da ga UataSt
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rikopljo . km a1 1 edaa'Ja SlalaAa poalao UataAW da ga' yblju latl Ja odaa la aod'i ubljaa t
lati Ja jo CurLa 111ju alao k'Jvnoa da ga dovada 1 da ga otroajaju da Ja oa aabunltalj
Brraokog aarodr

Facsimile of the first page of the testimony of the witnesses Stipe Duran, Mijo Curak, and
Ivan Suker about the criminal activity of the pastor Simlesa.

XX 9triyt*

Curld m Jo kxijo Mtaro oraio 1 »JJ« itluljo.

OA odl tUOPlt . . I .

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Facsimile of the last page of the testimony about the criminal activity of Simlesa.

only Croats, and that for the Croatian people with the poglavnik and his Ustasha,
salvation had come, which no one could take away from them again. He went into the
town and told the people that the Ustasha was the army that the poglavnik thought the
most of and that not everyone could join this army, just men who were totally dedicated
to the Croatian people and the poglavnik. Every son and husband who would join the
army would receive the highest reward from the poglavnik. He constantly visited the
villages and advised the Croats to send their sons to the Ustasha and to the militia to fight
against the English and the Americans, and he characterized the Germans as the only
salvation, since they stood by the Croatian people and would conquer the other peoples. A
great many men followed his priestly advice and joined the Ustasha and the militia.

What else can you tell us about Simlesa? What did he do at the time of the NDH? What
else do you know?

I know that when the murders began in July 1941, he was the main organizer of the
massacre in our community all this time. The emigrants came back then to get his advice
on how they could eliminate the Serbian people most easily. When the massacre was
carried out at his command, he forced the people along with the emigrants to strike down
the Serb rebellion. The whole time he was reviewing the guards who were securing the
position. In the presence of Mijo Curak, he said that everyone who wanted to flee

202 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

to Dalmatia should be eliminated just like the Serbs, because they would deliver
messages to the communists; he personally would kill anyone who tried to cross the
borders to Bosnia and Dalmatia. Anyone coming over from Dalmatia would have to be
thrown into the gorge by the Ustasha immediately, so that no contact with the people
would be possible. He would have to be personally responsible to Simlesa for this matter.
Several days later when a Dalmatian came to castrate pigs, Simlesa immediately sent
soldiers who killed him that very night. He set the Germans on Mijo Curak, whom they
were to fetch and shoot, since he was stirring up the Croatian people. Mijo Curak,
however, hid the whole time and was seen by no one.

He destroyed the birth register when the people asked for it so that the Partisans couldn't
find it to conscript the Croats into the army. All the time he had a radio broadcast
apparatus, which he operated in Livno, and when he retreated, i.e., fled, he buried it
somewhere or gave it to someone to keep.

At the massacre he said that we all had to fall in line and that no Serb dare be left alive. If
we didn't eliminate them soon, they would do it to us, and therefore everyone should join
in who didn't want to suffer what the Orthodox were suffering now. Along with the
Ustasha, he was all this time fleeing from the people's liberation army. When the
partisans marched into Livno for the first time, he told the people that no one who was
able to carry a gun should wait for the partisans, and that everyone had to join him in the
battle.
In 1944 he became the county supervisor in Livno, where the whole time he acted
severely against the sympathizers of the partisans, who did well to stay out of his sight.

The testimony, which I hereby sign, was read to me. I swear on my life that the facts
contained herein are correct. The content is also known to Mijo Curak, the son of the
deceased Joso from Odzak and to Ivan Suker from Listani, who likewise sign the protocol.

Stipe Duran Mijo Curak Ivan Suker

The State Commission for the Establishment of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers reports the following about the pastor Bozo Simlesa in document 12846/45:

He organized the Ustasha militia and from the altar admonished the people to join the
Ustasha. In order to acquire weapons and other utilitarian items for the police, he went to
Livno. He forced the people to arm themselves and gave instructions for the crimes. He
posted guards and checked them personally.

On 23 July 1941 he admonished the whole parish to come to the house of Ante Brcic. The
men were to bring guns, axes, hay forks, and other weapons. At this gathering, he said
that no Serb dare escape; the day of revenge was upon us. He asked the Ustasha Petar
Katanic from Dalmatia whether they had killed all the Serbs. Twenty-four hours had
passed, he said and asked whether he [Katanic] did not know that the poglavnik had
ordered that no Serb be permitted to live in Croatia any more. After Petar Katanic had
reported that all the men had been killed and the women and children were still waiting
for nightfall in order to follow the men into death, Simlesa ordered that they not wait
until night. In 1942, he preached from the altar that every Dalmatian Serb would have to
be taken care of, because they were all communists. If anyone should get across the
mountains, he should not be brought to the camp but he should be shot on the spot with
a bullet in his heart.

He was a friend of the well known Ustasha murderer Ivan Kelic, who went to the village
of Celebic to kill.

When a Dalmatian once came into the area to castrate pigs, he sent Us-tashe, who were
supposed to kill him. Still in the same night, he was killed; that happened in 1941 or 1942.

Simlesa used every opportunity to turn his bloody intentions into deeds. He worked with
the Ustasha, but exploited his position as county supervisor to exterminate the Serbs with
the help of the Germans.

In document 12846/45 of the State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the
Occupiers and their Helpers the following is found:

As county supervisor in Livno, he worked with the German authorities in such a manner
that he accused citizens of being followers of the People's Liberation Front. Thus Alija
Terzic and Muharem Jeles were arrested and condemned to death. The death sentence,
however, was not carried out, because Livno was bombed and the two were able to save
themselves in the ensuing confusion.
In July 1941, when the massacre was carried out on the Serbs, he admonished the people
from the altar to eliminate the Serbs in Croatia, because otherwise they would soon
eliminate the Croats. In doing so, he made it clear to everyone that no one dare cry about
the death of those Serbs from the village of Ceprazlije, also anyone who tipped off the
other Serbs would be thrown into the abyss by the Ustasha.

Witnesses: Mato Poric, son of Ilija from Donji Rujani, Niko Jureta, son of the deceased
Stipe from Donji Rujani, Ivan Cular, son of Marko, and Milka Brcic, daughter of Jako
from Listani, Mile Cenal, son of the deceased Joze from Gornji Rujani, Ilija Sukar, son of
Grga from Listani, Ivka Brcic, daughter of the deceased Bozo from Gornji Rujani, Stipe
Duran, son of the deceased Tomo from Cajic, Janja Lukac, wife of Luka from Lis-

204 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

tani, Izet Dizdar, son of the deceased Mustafa from Livno, Muharem Jeles, son of the
deceased Nasko from Livno, Alija Terzic, son of the deceased Adil from Livno, Bozo
Duran, son of Stjepan from Cajic, and Ivan Iva-novic, son of Stjepan from Cajic, county of
Livno.

In his crimes, Simlesa resembled Frater Mijo Cuntic from the village Pu-kovi in the
county of Duvno. The Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and
their Helpers in the document 12846/45 says the following:

When the Ustasha camp in Duvno was being built, Frater Mijo Cuntic was constantly in
the company of the well known criminals Jozo Brstilo and Bairo Tanovic and gave they
instructions for their criminal activity. During the massacre in the villages of Cebara,
Prisoje, and Vrila, in which not one Serb escaped, he was constantly in the Ustasha camp
with the above-named criminals.

Before the massacre, he organized a team that was to command the Serbs in the villages
to convert to the Catholic faith and, in the event that they did not do that, was to threaten
them that the same thing would happen to them that happened to those who had already
been thrown into the ravines.

On 21 July 1941, he organized a group of people who were to command those inhabitants
of the villages of Rascan, Mandina, and Srdani, who had fled, to return to their homes;
nothing was to happen to them. However, they awaited the Serbs, who had fled in all
directions, with axes, guns, and other weapons, and locked them up immediately. In the
afternoon around 4 o'clock, trucks with Ustasha butchers carried the Serbs off intending
to throw them into the Paklina ravine. But this devilish plan failed because the women
laid themselves in front of the trucks and prevented them from carrying the men off.

Frater Mijo Cuntic was one of the main organizers of the Ustasha regime in Duvno. He
formed the so-called "People's Committee," at whose head he himself stood. In addition,
he organized the "People's Defense," joined mostly by Pavelic people who had emigrated.
The task of this "Defense" was to disarm the Yugoslav army.

Among other priests in Bosnia, Frater Franjo Udovic, the pastor in the village of Koricani,
was prominent as the leader of the Ustasha terror in the neighboring villages. From the
report of the the State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and
their Helpers, document 12846 says the following:

r • j "CJ Slrt••Jo)cjrovtJa l? r«tMdniic nrftJUirfce j ni«dbor« Yitoyii»;iws itm'J n$k,UU ;


4n»<.26 .fih 1545 cod, & ? 6apl|^!t4&&*;;K^M;ltS|foiSfS

poloskcra Udo?tda naatald Ja -naoruRanJa* oifilnor katolll ko;; ntancvnUtva u tow


krajti,* 5en»u Ja bio -pOTod. fan Vdovid*

.sic s>? fcn;.\nije u notjwtnona razotkrllo, • • ' .. *

v i!il^ A ^?*,? v ^ a BO x tt i lR naSinlno da'ftto viM Tr^buje tojf; .VjiVoHftUoc sivljd u


usteSke rcdova,a kada Ja nerda milarlo* r.<. ctuor A «.o,:tenlh katolika-rriajenjitao. Je: 1
:>riailn« »Jera:

sr. i-.oV.ilicaciJu # . • , s . •> u ■ „• . ./..*-;

cno -tr^no yrovjarlli od onih\tota?a'!:oJe.Je on Vrb;

• -laJav/^rlnio/So^y

Sakodjerje u je&an 1941' iodine /deoenbra/ br<5ani«!bvnb' ,ia*aA uotf»-;a u aclo


Korlctmc i lr.ljane kojoa J* iprilUcoia • > '.^..u ubijano 11 Uda wodju kojlwi Ilija
Jaknnovi6»LasBXy vvif,Iu'.cj" , Siavnld i njesota (ana Mara, 31>rt»id\ Pa tor £

■Pored tosa celo Xorieaiie 1-lafiaaa au to*a juto db-'^-: fcftijnoftti o?ljo5kali«i pojollll oko
?Q Wb 1 20: oetilth" Avu;ih ; s»roda» * . . ■ * < "

'Oyia-tojn rijc&u mi* avo v .oc Jutra donoStifl irfjtataji'o•* ol.i^ju uv ;cvcn»A,u kojina 0e
naroCitO isvJaStnveri'J? o pojn—*' vara j>-irtls/ma,l ovokog .ruta fcuda ja
lsvJaStdna.o'raSim ■, l»o3tt*#fc:-.a - predusiryuli au lapndi od atraae uata5a,5to-dainld;
C«A'.crl o toae da Jo on bid gLml otub ta odrSeaja \iataSfr> .i.vlnr.ti-aa toa Hrcrasu i kao
takanrV- glaVnJL Ja krlw irraV; . zlodjelt. roolnjena«jj torn km3u # • ' „• • •* .pjravofluvoa
JiHaasooio da rada uata2kin porodtoana tin ?.' vroas najvaolh poltf.o.iu'lvredrtih ra5ova,a
oalo *o£a Ja nartdji •#«o d3 ao jcdan-pravoalaYao na anlja ttdaljlr»t*..«a rtoja a-uo*,3..»2
nJ0c0va.w5nr.Ja nija bilo udaljitanja. v

Kls clru^lh- njecovih protu-narodnih poatdpiika'^ooAsolitoJ . wi kojr uu ne oocu ai


aJatltl;Poda^ka mocu dprt a lat'&m ddtl :so2or ;ilja Slavnii -kda.podr.B.Iuka 1
.^oriMntnld JiJTo 53 ^1 Isjcvn rui Ja proStt—

The testimony of the witness Simo Jokanovic about the activity of Pater Franjo Udovic.

206 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Frater Franjo Udovic was an Ustasha since 1941. With a gun, he led the Ustashe and took
part in the arsons in the villages of Koricani and Imljani. He organized the Ustasha militia
in Koricani and was himself their commander. When the Ustashe needed the animals
from the village of Janje and drove them to Travnik, he was the one in charge and gave
most of the animals to the inhabitants of Koricani, who were his loyal servants.

On 26 July 1941, Simo Jakanovic testified that Udovic was responsible for the arson in the
villages of Koricani and Imljani and for the murder of twelve farmers.

Testimony

of Comrade Simo Jokanovic, chair of the Community People's Committee from Vitovlje,
county of Travnik, on 26 July 1945:

Upon the founding of the NDH, Zagar was the pastor in my village. He treated the Serbs
quite well and therefore was soon replaced. His position was filled by the above-
mentioned Udovic.

When Udovic came, as we found out later, the civilian Catholic population in this area
upon command was equipped with weapons.

He applied various methods to gain as many Catholics as possible for the Ustasha. If he
would encounter the resistance of good Catholics, he had them recruited by force. We
checked this by questioning Ustashe whom we captured and whom he had enlisted or
conscripted. The following persons can also attest to this: Jozo Blazevic, Martin Balta, his
brother, and Niko Nikic and the other good farmers from the village of Koricani.

In the fall of 1941, Udovic organized the attack on the villages of Koricani and Imljani,
during which 11 people were killed, among whom were Ilija Jokanovic, Lazar Jokanovic,
Luka Slavnic and his wife Mara, Petar Slavnic, and others.
At that time the villages of Koricani and Imljani—about 30 houses and 20 other buildings
—were completely plundered and set afire.

Every morning reports were made to him about the situation on the front and especially
about the positions of the partisans, and every time our presence was reported, we were
attacked by the Ustasha. This shows clearly that he was very much responsible for the
maintenance of the Ustasha power in this area. He is mainly guilty of all the crimes
committed in our area.

He forced the Orthodox to work for the Ustasha families whenever heavy agricultural
work was to be done and also ordered that no Orthodox person was to leave his home. No
one dared go away without his knowledge.

There is still a whole series of examples for his actions against the people, but I can't
remember them exactly anymore. Major Ilija Slavnic, commander of Banja Luka, and
Captain Jovo Slavnic from the 53rd division

can also give testimony about him. My testimony was read to me. Everything that I said
was properly recorded.

Simo Jokanovic

The Catholic priest Frater Mirko Brandic came to the village of Tramos-nica in the county
of Gradacac in 1943. After the retreat of the People's Liberation Army from this area, he
organized the Ustasha militia. From the altar he ranted against the People's Liberation
Movement. He delivered reports to the Ustashe and demanded that they persecute the
sympathizers of the People's Liberation Movement and arrest them. There is testimony
from Ivo Sokcevic and Juro Matic about his criminal activity.

Testimony

of Comrade Juro Matic (son of Sainkov) from Donja Tramosnica:

I am aware that the priest Frater Mirko Brandic was in close communication with the
Ustasha leaders, and not only that: He was also the initiator of everything that the
Ustasha did in our village and in the vicinity.

The above-named person came to our village at the beginning of 1943 and immediately
began the persecution of everyone who cooperated with the partisans. Several persons
were turned in to the Ustasha because of this cooperation, locked up by them, and several
were also beaten. Upon the command of Frater Mirko Brandic, the Ustashe came to me,
tied me up, drove me to a school and beat me terribly. Once they had released me, he
ordered me captured again. Then they beat me again and stabbed me twice with a knife.
With a pliers, they pulled on my tongue and screamed at me: "You are a communist and
do not believe in our church." The Ustashe did all this upon the orders of Mirko Brandic. I
can attest to this because they showed me the orders from Frater Mirko whereby Juro
Matic was to be punished because he cooperated with the People's Liberation Movement
and was against the Ustasha state.

Mirko Brandic organized the Ustasha police in 1944, for whom he—at the cost of the
inhabitants—acquired 400 guns. He forced the people to arm themselves without regard
for whether they could use a gun or not. The people had to sell their animals, their food,
and even their clothes, or else they would be beaten. During the Sunday services, the
pastor constantly ranted against the People's Liberation Movement. He said, for example,
that the partisans slaughtered people and would sleep with their mothers and sisters.
Anto Gagulic, Anto Zovkic, and Boni Knezevic can attest to any testimony, and I can swear
to it.

Juro Matic

208 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Frater Ante Klaric was a priest in the village of Tramosnica in the county of Bosanski
Samac. After the formation of the NDH, he became the field camp leader for the Ustasha
and took part in the disarming of the former Yugoslav army. With the Ustashe and other
units, he took part in the attacks on the Serb villages. He recruited the farmers for the
Ustasha militia and organized their attacks on the surrounding Orthodox villages. He
incited hatred against the Serbs and from the pulpit said the following to the people:

You are old wives and should wear skirts, because up until now you have not killed even
one Serb. We have no weapons and knives, and therefore we should forge them from old
scythes and sickles. Wherever you see a Serb, slaughter him.

In the testimony of the cleric Srecka Roki from Bosanski Samac, we read that Frater Ante
Klaric led Ustasha groups who in the night plundered the Serb villages and terrorized
them.

The Orthodox priest of Lapovo, Risto D. Jovanovic, expressed himself more thoroughly
and more impressively in his report concerning the tragedy that befell the Serb people by
the Ustasha and by the priests infested with the Ustasha spirit. We print here an excerpt:

The Ustashe committed all these crimes on order of their field-camp director, Frater Ante
Klaric, the pastor in Tramosnica. This pastor was the main initiator of the persecutions
and mistreatments of the Serbs in this area. He came personally with the Ustasha units to
our villages, called the Serbs together in some towns and had them line up in lines facing
each other. He ordered them to slap each other and to call each other the most vile things.
Afterwards he drove them all to his church, locked them up there in a stall and kept them
prisoner for several days without food and water. Before his eyes, the Ustashe beat the
people with gun butts and whips. And as agreed, they hit even harder and more brutally
when he said they should not hit so hard. Frater Ante took pleasure in the cries of the
Serbs and entertained himself all the while with a lady innkeeper. In his parish, there
were also several Serbs, and the holy cult objects of the Orthodox churches, as, for
example, the chalice and other old religious objects, were found in his home in the most
unworthy places. He expelled the Orthodox priest and distributed the remaining things
from the church among his followers.

This report, among others, is found in the Archive of the Commissariat for Refugees (D
LXVIII Nr. 3789).

Even Slavko Ristic, priest and the archbishop's representative in Brcko, accuses Frater
Ante Klaric and depicts him as "the Ustasha who has most

distinguished himself in the persecutions and mistreatment of the Serbs in our area."
(Archive of the Commissariat for Refugees D LXVII Nr. 3789).

Ante Lucie, Jelena Durkovic, Ivo Zoljic, Pavao Durkovic, and Marjan Ivkic also report on
his deeds.

Testimony

of the undersigned from the village Domaljevac:

Ante Klaric was born in 1901 in Domaljevac, was pastor in the village Tramosnica in the
county of Gradacac until 1941, and then came to our village Domaljevac as pastor.

From the time of his activity in Tramosnica, we know him as an active organizer of the
Ustasha movement; he executed various acts of violence and crimes in the neighboring
Serb villages. Whenever he came to a Serb house where the family was at the table, he
upset the table with his feet. We also know that he carried out a search in a Serb house
and stole 8,000 Kunes belonging to the man of the house, whom we do not know.

When he came to Domaljevac in 1943, he and Siman Andic from the village of Domaljevac
organized the Ustashe there, too. Under their command were 700 Ustashe. We also know
that he terrorized Luka Curkovic from Domaljevac, who was eventually killed at his
command by the Ustashe.

We ourselves heard him order the Ustashe to forge knives from scythes, to go to the
Slavonic partisan villages and to Babina Greda, and there to kill the partisan families and
plunder their houses.

We saw the Ustashe returning from their action driving pigs before them, which they had
stolen from the partisan families. They slaughtered the pigs, and the priest Ante Klaric
also took some of the meat home with him.
We also are aware that Ante Klaric carried out actions against the Serb village of Brvnik
and that in doing so, he took along a crate of chickens as well as other things. He himself
led the Ustashe against this village and on his command, the house of Bozo Mitrovic and
the farm buildings of Ronic from Brvnik were set afire.

We are aware that he was a participant in the murder of 18 people fetched from the
village of Orasje and killed in Bazik on the Save river.

Once this same Ante Klaric drove to Samac with the criminal Ante Mrko-njic, the then
commander of the Ustasha battalion. On the way to Samac, they encountered two women
and a man, whom they killed in Tisina and threw them into the frozen Save. It was winter.

In the church, he admonished the Ustashe and the people: "Forge knives and slaughter
them one after the other."

Everything that he ordered was carried out according to command. For example, he
ordered my husband Luka Durkovic to be killed, and he threatened me as follows: "You
are not to tell anyone that the Ustashe killed him. You say that it was the partisans,
otherwise I will kill all the rest of you in this house.*'

210 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

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Testimony of the witnesses Jelena Durkovic, Pavao Durkovic, and Ivo Zoljic about the
pastor Klaric.

We know that from the first day that the Ustashe appeared, he attached the letter "U" to
his clothes and henceforth also carried guns.

Up until the ultimate defeat of the Ustashe, he conducted battle against the partisans, and
when they came into the area, he retreated along with the Ustashe in the direction of
Slovenia. Since this time no one has heard of him."

Jelena Durkovic
Pavao Durkovic

Ivo Zoljic

Testimony

of Ante Lucie, son of Marko from Domaljevac against Ante Klaric:

In 1941 and until the year 1943, he was pastor in Tramosnica, and I heard that during this
time he was Ustasha field-camp director and from the very first day wore the letter "U"
and carried weapons. He had some sort of officer rank and after the capitulation of
Yugoslavia, he took part in the disarming of the Yugoslav soldiers.

As a high Ustasha, he took part there in actions against Serb villages, himself recruited a
large number of Croatian men, armed them, and sent them against the Serbs and
partisans.

In 1943, he began his service in our village of Domaljevac. Right after his arrival, it
became clear that he would sow the seeds of dissent in our village and that he also would
force anyone who was not willing to join the Ustasha. And that is indeed what happened.

Right after he arrived, he everywhere threatened that anyone who did not want to join the
Ustasha would be killed. He said that during a sermon in the church, and right away
about 200 young men joined the Ustasha out of fear, whereas previous to this, no one
from our village was with the Ustasha.

When he had gathered these young men—I was present, too—he gave there the following
speech: "You are old women. Put on skirts. You haven't killed a single Serb. We have no
weapons nor knives, so forge some. Take old scythes and sickles, take them to the smithy
and make knives out of them. And wherever you see a Serb, kill him. But don't tell your
wives. Take him someplace where no one will find him, and when you go to Samac and
encounter a Serb there, tell him: 'Come along!' and then take him to the Save and kill
him."

Our Croatian people believed the priests, and so many unknowing people joined them and
then became real criminals. And he specifically persuaded many to commit crimes against
the Serbian people.

He did not often take part in actions, but they nevertheless always happened at his
command, whenever an action was carried out against Serb villages or any partisan site.
For example, I know that he gave the Ustashe from our village the order to march into
Babina Greda in Slavonia. When

212 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS


they were leaving, he ordered them to kill all the residents of a house, to confiscate the
property, and to set the house afire, if even just one person was with the partisans or had
a family member with the partisans.

When the Ustashe returned from this action, they were driving a lot of stolen animals
with them, from which he, too, received some for himself.

The Ustashe demanded from us farmers wood to heat their barracks in the village, and he
issued the order that every farmer was to take his wagon to the Serbian village Brvnik,
chop wood there, load his wagon, and return. No one wanted to do this; everyone wanted
rather to give wood from his own supply, but he did not allow this, but rather, in order to
set an example, went with Skica and Ante Mrkonjic to Brvnik as the first. They plundered
many houses and brought the stolen things in a wagon to Do-maljevac, so that the people
could see it, too. When the others noted that even the pastor was plundering, they
followed his example.

Afterwards, he ordered an action against the village of Brvnik: upon his urging, the village
was plundered.

When the Yugoslav army appeared in 1945, he and the Ustashe retreated in the direction
of Slovenia and took part in many battles against the Yugoslav army. Those who wanted
to retreat, he tried to persuade to come along, and anyone who did not wish to continue
fighting he had shot.

Anto Lucie

Testimony

of Marjan Ivkic from the village Turic:

In 1941, when the former Yugoslavia capitulated, I went home as a Yugoslav soldier, but
was forced by the former field camp director, Frater Ante Tepe-luk Klaric, to join the
Ustasha, with whom I stayed for about two months in my village. During this time, I saw
various things that opened my eyes and caused me to submit my resignation. I was
concerned about the following:

The above-named Frater Ante Klaric ordered me and three other Ustashe to enter the
house of Jovo Markanovic in Porebrice and to beat him to a pulp because he allegedly was
connected with the Cetniks, although at that time there were almost no Cetniks in the
vicinity.

On the next day the above-named person ordered us to go to Gornji Zabar and to beat
Zivan Cukic for the same reason. Two weeks later, he commanded us to go to the village
Porebrice again and to beat Gavro Markanovic. In addition, he sent us out every day to
arrest someone or other and to lock them up, people whom he then personally
interrogated. I accompanied Pejo Zetic, Jurko Itric, and Marko Cicic, the leader of our
patrol.

Because of this terror, which was carried out on people on the orders of Frater Ante
Tepeluk, I submitted my resignation and quit the service. Thereupon, the above-named
pastor told me he would send me away from home into the army. This he also did—to the
Ustasha army—where I stayed almost two years.

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Facsimile of the testimony of the witness Marjan Ivkic about the influence of the Ustasha
pater Ante Klaric.

How Frater Marko Calusic, the Ustasha pastor of the Church of St. Ante in Sivsa,
functioned as leader of the Ustasha murderers is described by the Ustasha newspaper
Nova Hrvatska on 28 June 1942:

In the moment of danger, Frater Marko walked the path of the famous Luka Imbrisinovic.
He, however, did not carry a sword but went into battle with a gun over his shoulder in
defense of his parish members. Some time ago I heard of his perfect defense organization.
The name of the priest-captain Frater Marko was familiar to me. When the attacks of the
rebels from Ljeskove Vode and Gojakovac began, where the partisans had their staff,
Frater Marko sent his people in. He set them up at the border. In the beginning he had 30
armed men, later 60, and now there are 180.

Marija Bogunovic, housewife from Livno, and Ljubo Crnogorac, innkeeper from Celebic,
county of Livno, made concurring testimony in the hearing on 24 June 1942 in the
commissariat for refugees. Their testimony concerned the horrors that the Ustasha had
committed in Livno county. Their spiritual leader, so they said, was Dr. Srecko Perk, a
Franciscan from the cloister Gorica near Livno. They reported the following:

214 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

The above-mentioned massacre of the Serbs in Livno county was led by Frater Dr. Srecko
Peric, a Franciscan from the cloister Gorica near Livno. This Frater came from Livno
county and had a sister there who was married to a Serb. On Sunday before the massacre,
he from the pulpit ordered the Croats assembled in the church in Gorica to begin the
massacre of the Serbs by saying the following: "Croatian brothers, go and slaughter all
Serbs. First kill my sister, who is married to a Serb, and then kill all Serbs one by one.
When you have finished, come to me in the church so that I can hear your confessions
and forgive your sins." Then the massacre of the Serbs began. At the same time the
Ustasha plundered the Serb houses and subsequently set them afire. Then they were
intending to tear down all Orthodox churches in Livno county.—In Livno county, the
Serbs were not forced to convert to the Roman Cathoiic faith, because they were all
murdered. Up until 20 August 1941 in Livno county, according to very precise figures,
5,600 Serbs, men, women, and children, were killed and slaughtered. In the persecution
of the Serbs, the Ustasha Dr. Frater Srecko Peric was especially prominent, who at the
time of Yugoslavia was a Roman Catholic priest for a long time. In addition to Peric, 20
other brothers of the cloister took part in the persecution of the Serbs.

(Testimony of Serb refugees, pp. 20-26)

The farmer Mile Miskovic from Radovica, in the community of Cetin-grad, reports on the
crimes of the pastor Petar Medved

Petar Medved was the instigator and spiritual originator of all crimes that the Ustasha
committed in this area. The village Begovo Brdo had converted fully to the Islamic faith.
But that did them no good, because in March 1942, the whole village was slaughtered. . . .
Petar Medved was the one responsible for all the crimes that the Ustasha committed
against the Serbs in the community of Cetingrad.

Josip Kaurinovic, the pastor in Prijedor, was an Ustasha and a glowing "missionary" and
right from the first day of the Ustasha crimes and violence, proceeded quite aggressively
against the Serbian people, just as the pastor Milan Borojevic from Prijedor reports on
him (Archives of the Commissariat for Refugees, DLXXXVI, Nr. 3738). Also a
Mohammedan, the judge Muhamed Sadikovic, accuses the pastor Kaurinovic in his report
of 19 August 1942 as colleague of Dr. Viktor Gutic in the annihilation of the Serbs. His
report is very thorough and it alone comprises seven pages containing only horrors of the
Ustasha regime. Among other things, he writes:

Upon the council of Kaurinovic, the Orthodox priests were arrested. He also took part in
murders and marched around with his gun in his own parish.

The pastor Dr. Branimir Zupanic knew the condition in Bosanska Gra-diska very well. He
took part in the organization of the Ustasha forces and took part in a massacre of several
hundred Serbs. The State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers
and their Helpers determined the following in their document number 12847/45:

Dr. Branimir Zupanic, who was the pastor in Bosanska Gradiska,, already at the time of
old Yugoslavia, was an active member of the Ustasha movement. According to testimony
of the witnesses Mahmut Causevic, Osman Tabakovic, Smail Kulenovic, Vaso Kovacevic,
Smail Kurbegovic, and others, the above-named person was a personal friend of the
poglavnik Ante Pa-velic. Upon the suggestion of Zupanic, the poglavnik named Margan
Mo-sarac as county supervisor in Bosanska Gradiska and named Zvonko Lukic as camp
director. These same witnesses claim that the pastor Zupanic, together with the above-
named persons, organized the massacre of the Serbs in the village of Ragolji, where over
400 men, women, and children were slaughtered. At the meeting where this massacre
was planned, Zupanic was in charge. He is seen as the spiritual originator of all crimes in
Bosanska Gradiska. For his antinational activity, he was honored with the service badge
2nd class, inventory number 171, running number 11-54/44.

Frater Branko Bandic, already before the capitulation of the former Yugoslavia, worked in
the Ustasha organization. Even back then he was an adherent of the race theory. The
State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers
reported the following in document 12858/45:

Frater Branko Bandic, pastor in Hrvacani in the county of Prnjavor, had taken the Ustasha
oath and in 1941, right after the establishment of the NDH, was named Ustasha deputy.
The witness Jakov Kurcebe from Hrvacani claims he was interrogated by Bandic
concerning why he was not joining the "Black Legion," and Bandic said in front of
everybody that anyone who did not join the above-mentioned legion would regret it. The
witness Vaso Vojic, the son of the deceased Pano from the village of Drugovici in Prnjavor
county, claims that pastor Bandic in his function as Ustasha deputy and with Dusan
Jovanovic took hostages. In June 1941, Bandic as Ustasha deputy sent a patrol to the
village of Drugovic to fetch the most respected people there, whom he then brought to
Prnjavor under guard. At the end of July 1941, he went to Prnjavor, where he agreed with
the other Ustashe to arrest and kill the people in the whole county of Prnjavor who were
dangerous for the Ustasha movement. Upon the return from Prnjavor, he brought along
many Ustashe to Hrvacani, with whose help he arrested about 120 people and sent them
to Banja Luka.

216 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

Frater Miroslav Filipovic, chaplain from the cloister of Petricevac near Banja Luka,
already in 1940 took the Ustasha oath. Upon the founding of the NDH, he and the other
Ustasha functionaries organized the persecution of the Serbs and himself took part in the
massacres. Among his many crimes are the massacres in the villages of Drakulici,
Sargovac, and Motika near Banja Luka. On 7 February 1942, he and a company (the
Pavelic battalion) set out for the above-named village with the intent of killing the Serbs
living there. The first victim, the child of Duro Glamo-canin, was killed by the priest
Filipovic as he called out:

Ustashe, this is taking place in the name of God; I baptize these offspring, and you follow
me. I as the first take the whole sin upon me; I will hear your confessions so that you will
be forgiven of your sins.

Thus he incited the Ustasha criminals, who thereafter killed about 1,500 men, women,
and children with axes and rakes. Since he had proven himself as a human beast upon
this occasion, whom the Ustashe could well use, they promoted him and named him
commandant of the infamous camp at Jasenovac. There he daily carried out murders with
his own hands, mainly of women and children, whom he killed with blows from a wooden
hammer to their heads. He terrified the camp inmates and killed them without pity, as
can be gathered from the testimony of the survivors.

Because of these murders of innocent men, women, and children, Pavelic rewarded him
with the rank of a battalion commander.

Testimony

of Comrade Jovo Vukobrada, son of the deceased Duro, born 1904 in the village of
Drakulici in Banja Luka county, farm worker, knows how to read and write by virtue of
being a graduate of two middle-school classes, married, Orthodox Serb citizen of the
federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, concerning the massacre in the village of
Drakulici:

On 7 February 1942 when the massacre was carried out in the village of Drakulici, I left
early in the morning with my sleigh to take hay to Marko Lipovac in the village of Budzak.
When I arrived at Marko's place, he asked me with great concern whether I had seen a
troop of Ustashe headed toward Drakulici on the road where my house was. I replied that
the Ustasha troops that committed the massacre had not gone along the road that I used.
At that time I did not at all know that a massacre had taken place and I was expecting my
wife to bring me my lunch around 10 o'clock; but the morning passed and no one arrived
from my family. Around four, however, Marko Lipovac appeared and said: "Hide in my
barn; your loved ones have all been killed; the Ustashe are slaughtering and murdering us
all one after the other." Thus we hid in his barn, where we kept hidden for six days

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Facsimile of the testimony of Jovo Vukobrada, who survived the massacre in Drakulici.

218 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

without anyone knowing it.

Six days later, Marko Lipovac, who had hidden us, went to the cloister Petricevac to ask
the cloister administrator if there was any possibility of rescuing those who had not been
home on the day of the massacre and therefore had survived. The director answered him:
"Our poglavnik acts only with divine permission. Everything that has happened has been
blessed by the Church, and she will not see it as anyone's sin. So don't expect anything
different for the survivors than for those who happened to be in the village on the day of
the massacre." Upon these words from the cloister director, Marko Lipovac replied that he
did not believe in that God that the poglavnik was relying on for help. He said he was
outraged that the Ustashe, who had orders to annihilate all the Orthodox in the area of
Sar-govac, Motika, and Drakulici, were getting not only moral and organizational help
from a part of the Catholic Church but also the personal help of Catholic priests. For
example, he said, Frater Tomislav Filipovic, who led a column of murderers on the day of
the massacre, was personally involved in the killing of the Serbian people, from the child
in the cradle to the oldest men and women.

This same Frater Tomislav Filipovic came to the house of Duro Glamo-canin in the village
Drakulici on the day of the massacre accompanied by the Ustasha; he himself started the
massacre by fetching a child from the house of Duro Glamocanin, killed it with a knife,
and said:. "Ustashe, look!. I baptize this offspring in the name of God and you shall follow
me. I, as the first, assume all the sin; God, will not view our work as sin. I will hear your
confessions and absolve you of all sins." Thereupon began a bestial massacre in which the
Ustashe wallowed in the blood of the innocent people.

I draw attention to the fact that in addition to Frater Tomislav Filipovic, Stipo Golub, Ante
Pletkosa, Simo Pletkosa, Stipo Juric, Ivan Juric, and Mirko Juric were present as leaders
and that several of them on the eve of the massacre were present with the Ustasha
bloodhounds and Frater Filipovic at a meeting that was held in the former court of Banus
in Banja Luka.

I attest to the veracity of my testimony with my signature. I am willing to state publicly


and to affirm at any time that my testimony is true, since I am one of the few survivors of
the massacre in my village.

Jovo Vukobrada

"The commando of the Ustasha Surveillance Service" shows the following in its report on
the massacre in the village of Drakulici:

... We have carried out your radio command fully and give the following report:

On the 7th of this month, the 2nd company of the "Toglavnik Battalion" carried out the
following action led by First Lieutenant Josip Mislov and in which the Reverend Miroslaw
Filipovic, pastor from Petricevac, now captain in the Ustasha battalion, took part:

On this day, about ten Ustashe of the above-named battalion came to the Rakovac mine
near Banja Luka at 4 o'clock in the morning. The Ustashe fetched several workers of
Greek-Eastern [derogatory designation for "Greek-Orthodox," translator's note] faith who
were staying in the duty room of the mine and killed them immediately in the direct
vicinity of the mine. At 8 o'clock in the morning, the remainder of the company joined
them, whereupon the Ustashe arrested the workers of the first shift coming to work,
checked their identity, led away all workers of Greek-Eastern faith, bound them, and
killed them in the immediate vicinity of the mine. This took place by first striking each of
them on the back of the head with a blunt instrument and then killing him with a blow
from a pickaxe in the head. When they all had been murdered, they arrested the workers
from the third shift, who were just then emerging from the pit, and did the same with
them. They ordered the remaining workers to dig a ditch to bury the dead. Thirty-seven
were buried and—according to the statements of several workers— up to 52 were killed.
The Ustashe came to the mine again at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, checked all the workers,
but this time did not kill anyone. In the Rakovac mine there had been 60 workers of
Greek-Eastern faith employed. Those who were not murdered fled into the forest.

From Rakovac, the Ustashe went to the village of Drakulici and were shown by Ivo June,
a mine worker, Stipe Golub, and the field worker Simon Pletikosa the houses of the
Greek-eastern people, from which they dragged the people and killed the men, women,
and children, too, one after the other.

A massacre was also committed in the village of Sargovac; the number of the murdered in
the two villages amounts to about 1,300 to 1,500 people. They were killed in the same
manner as in the Rakovac mine, only that this time axes were also used.

On the return from Sargovac, the massacre was also carried out in the village of Motika,
where about 70 families died in the same manner. The Ustashe ordered the remaining
farmers to bury the dead. The burials began on the same day and were finished on the
10th of February. Some bodies were eaten by pigs and dogs.

After all this, the Ustashe came again to the above-named villages and transported food,
animals, and fowl from them. Later they did the same with the household objects. This
removal lasted until 11 February of the year. . . . According to reports held by the
commissariat, the Greek-Eastern people in the above-named villages behaved perfectly
calmly. They had also not helped the Cetniks, since they were surrounded by Croatian
villages.

The events of the Ustashe and the preceding attack on the jurisdiction of all the city
offices not only caused tremendous bitterness and panic among

220 PART II: MASSACRES AMONG DISSENTERS

the citizens, but also among the residents of the surrounding villages, who feared the
revenge of the Cetniks.

From the judgment of the county national court—Gospic Nr. K 30/1946-9 of 7 February
1946 it is seen that the nuns Zarka-Julijana Ivasic, born in 1908 in Krasic, Danica
Hubertina Dzimbreg, born in 1920 in Otok, Sinj County, Lucija Celestina Radosevic, born
in 1914 in Prnjavor, and Jadviga Venera Fostacz, born in 1918 in Ljaskovka, Poland, were
found guilty in the following points:
1. . . . together on days not precisely known in the summer of 1943 in Oto-cac several
times sent bread, eggs, and other food, which they purloined from the hospital, to the
Ustasha bandits who were hiding in the woods surrounding Otocac. Specifically, the
accused Julijana Zarka Ivasic sent to the Ustasha band medical material also. Thus they
supported the armed bands by giving them food and medical material;

2. ... on days not precisely known in the summer of 1941 in Otocac in a joint agreement
informed the Ustasha bandits in the forest concerning the strength and movements of the
partisan units in Otocac and gave the band further necessary information on the basis of
which the Ustasha in the night of 13 September 1943 suddenly entered Otocac, set many
vehicles on fire with gasoline upon this occasion, killed several civilians and partisans,
and retreated then from Otocac. They thus were conducting spy activities by gathering
information that according to its content was military secrets and transferred it to the
fascist bandit organization;

3. ... on a day not precisely known in the summer of 1943 in Otocac in joint agreement
organized the liberation of a wounded Ustasha from the partisan hospital in Otocac and
transported the same to the forest and to the Ustasha bandits. Thus they were helping the
armed bands by maintaining communication with them and performing service for them;

4. ... in the time from April 1943 to 13 September 1943 in Otocac as nurses in the hospital
treated the wounded and ill partisans entrusted to them in an inhuman manner by
withholding the necessary care and attention for which they were professionally bound;

5. ... in the night from 13 to 14 September 1943 in the hall of the hospital at Otocac
received Ustasha bandits enthusiastically about whom they knew that they would enter
Otocac. They embraced them and kissed them, gave them schnapps and apples after the
massacre, and fled with them in the same night in the direction of Gospic.

Documents on Massacres under the Leadership of Priests 221 The accused Julijana Zarka
Ivasic was further found guilty of:

1. in the night from 13 to 14 September 1943 upon the occasion of the attack of the
hospital in Otocac, denouncing a commander of the partisans to the Ustasha bandits on
the steps of the hospital; the Ustashe immediately killed him with a knife. Thereafter she
led the Ustasha bandits from room to room in the hospital and denounced ill partisans,
whereupon the bandits upon this occasion tormented and killed twelve severely wounded
people in the most gruesome manner with guns, knives, and other stabbing instruments.

2. on a day not precisely known in July 1945 in Osijek as a nurse in the hospital hiding
from our authorities two known Ustashe and the Ustasha priest Jerko Eterovic so that he
could escape just punishment of the national court. . . .

(Documents concerning the Antinational Work and Crimes of a Part of the Catholic
Clergy, p. 124)

PART THREE THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

Decrees concerning Sending People to the Camp

Near the junction of the Una and the Save before the war lay a large, growing town on the
northern banks—Jasenovac. The population was predominantly Serbian. The town lies on
the train route between Zagreb and Belgrade, and even before the war there were several
industries here, for example, the brick factory "Ciglara" and the small tooling plant
"Lancara."

On the east side of the great Jasenovac plain, the tributaries Strug and Lonja enter the
Save, and the whole area is constantly subject to spring and fall floods.

Even before their entry into Yugoslavia, the leaders of the terrorist Ustasha organization
knew very well that they had no hold on the masses and that they could stay in power
only through terror. Shortly after their defeat, when they entered Italy on tanks with a
troop of their fascist criminals, who already before the war had been maintained by fascist
money and had been trained in various Italian centers for the execution of terrorist acts,
right in the first days of the occupation, under the protection and with the active help of
German and Italian troops, they began to carry out mass arrests according to a previously
laid plan and began to murder Serbs, Jews, and progressive Croats.

According to their ideas of the purity of the race and the nation, they planned to
annihilate all Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies in Croatia; at the same time, they planned to
eliminate all those Croats who—no matter how— had expressed their antifascist stance.
Thus all prisons and jails were filled in a short time.

225

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Facsimile of the incarceration decree for the twelve-year-old Mirko Seve in the Jasenovac
camp.

To be sure, the Ustashe founded camps in other places, too, for example, in Dakovo,
Sisak, Stara Gradiska, Lepoglava, Lobor, etc. But these were smaller. Jasenovac became
the largest and most important concentration camp in the so-called NDH.

The Ustashe killed or resettled the entire population of Jasenovac and erected a
permanent Ustasha garrison in the town itself.

The first transports brought the prisoners, mainly Jews and Serbs, to the village Krapje,
which lay about 12 kilometers west of Jasenovac There they were ordered to build the
camp that was to get the official name of "Jasenovac Camp Nr. 1."

Since the number of prisoners grew more and more, a second camp was founded between
Jasenovac and Krapje, which got the official name "Camp Nr. 2." The prisoners had to
build these two camps, the barracks and the dams, themselves, but the water destroyed
everything again and again.

Finally the Ustashe saw that the two selected sites were unsuitable for concentration
camps. They abandoned the sites after a short while and founded a new camp near the
brick factory "Ciglara" in Jasenovac; it got the official name "Camp Nr. 3."

In Jasenovac itself, they erected "Camp Nr. 4" in the former leather factory, while the
camp at Stara Gradiska, which lay not far from Jasenovac, is mentioned in the Ustasha
reports several times as "Camp Nr. 5."

All the camps together could receive up to 7,000 prisoners. During all the "work," there
were never more than 3,000 to 4,000, not even at the time when there were various
shops in camp Nr. 3.

(The State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers concerning the Concentration Camp Jasenovac, pp. 3-4)

Legal decree of the poglavnik Ante Pavelic and of the Justice and Religion Minister Mirko
Puk of 25 November 1941 concerning sending people to assembly and work camps who
are considered "unsuitable and dangerous" to the NDH.

Legal decree

concerning the compulsory relegation of undesirable and dangerous persons to assembly


and work camps

1. Undesirable persons who are a threat to public order and security or could threaten the
peace and quiet of the Croatian people or the achievements of the war of liberation of the
Croatian Ustasha movement, can be compelled into the assembly and work camps. The
Ustasha Security Service has the authority for the establishment of these camps in the
individual sites of the NDH.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

2. The length of stay in the assembly and work camps may not be shorter than 3 months
and not longer that 3 years.

The Ustasha Security Commander can at any time according to his judgment shorten the
length of stay for individuals and reduce the custody and supervisory measures.

3. The Ustasha Police Force as a branch of the Ustasha Security Service has the authority
to decide on the compulsory relegation to the assembly and work camps, on the length of
stay there, and on the degree of security and supervisory measures according to the rules
of this legal decree.

All administrative and self-administrative offices as well as all other institutions of the
Ustasha movement are obliged to report to the Ustasha Police force via the Regional
Police of their area the persons indicated in point 1 of this legal decree.

There is no legal recourse to the decision concerning compulsory relegation of people to


the assembly and work camps; therefore, no complaints can be lodged with the
administrative court.
4. Preceding the decision concerning the compulsory relegation of people to the assembly
and work camps, there shall be a process intended for administrative penal cases. The
Ustasha Police Force routes the process directly or indirectly through the administrative
offices of the place of the original referral.

5. The time that the person spends in the custody of the administrative offices and of the
police authority, until the decision is made concerning compulsory relegation to the
assembly and work camps, is to be calculated in the length of imprisonment.

6. The Ustasha Security Commander will issue a book of regulations concerning the
relegation, the activity, the supervisory measures, and the care of the persons
incarcerated in the assembly and work camps.

7. This legal decree becomes effective on the day of its announcement in the public
newspaper; its execution is entrusted to the Ustasha Security Commander.

Zagreb, 25 November 1941 The Poglavnik of the Independent State of Croatia

Dr. Ante Paveli6

(handwritten signature)

Nr.: CDXXIX-2101-Z-1941Z10

The Justice and Religion Minister: Dr. Mirko Puk (handwritten signature)

Decrees concerning Sending People to the Camp 229

(from A. Miljetic, Das Konzentrationslager Jasenovac 1941-1945, Vol. I, pp. 89-90)

Directive of the commandant of he Ustasha Security Service Kommando Eugen Kvaternik


of December 1941 concerning the methods of handling persons sent to work and
assembly camps (Archiv VII, a. NDH, Vol. 172, Reg. Nr. 2/1):

Kommando of the Ustasha Security Service Prs. Number. 12473/41.

Re: Procedures with persons who are sent to work and assembly camps. To all districts, to
the police authority of the city of Zagreb

In the legal decree of 25 November 1941, Nr. CDXXIX-210i-Z.p.-1941 concerning the


relegation of undesirable and dangerous persons to assembly and work camps, it is
determined that the decision or the relegation to the camps will be made by the Ustasha
police authority (§3).

In the spirit of a unified procedure in these matters, the addressee is directed to forward
to the district police and all subordinate administrative offices of his area a memorandum
in which the following guidelines are outlined:

The offices and institutions designated in the legal decree direct a justified complaint
against the persons named in § 1 to the district police. The latter will transmit such
complaint to the Ustasha Security Service, Office I (Directorship of the Ustasha Police
Force of the NDH—Zagreb, Petrinjska Street 7/IV) who will either carry out the process as
an individual case as provided for in § 4 of the legal decree, or give the assignment to the
primary court of justice of the administrative authority, so that it will carry out the
prescribed procedure.

If the complaint lodged via the authorities named in § 3 is not clear or is insufficiently
based, the district police authorities themselves can carry out the process prescribed for
the administrative court, or charge the primary court of justice of the administrative
authority therewith.

The district police authorities transmit to the UNS [Ustasha Security Service; translator's
note], Office I, the motion to execute compulsory relegation to the camp according to the
above-named process and according to the accompanying form (Form LI). That office will
make the final decision. In its motion, the district police authority will consider the result
of the process as well as the political and moral background of the persons to be
relegated. Likewise, the date of the incarceration of these persons is to be indicated at the
administrative or police offices.

The complaint and the motion can contain a justified suggestion of the authorities of the
primary court of justice or of the district police authorities regarding the length of
incarceration.

The recommendation on the form (Form LI) will be made in quadruplet.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

One copy remains in the office that recommends compulsory relegation to the camp, and
three copies are to be sent to the UNS.

All costs of the administrative process as well as the costs for the photograph are to be
borne by the person being relegated, unless he/she qualifies for poverty status according
to the existing laws.

The UNS, Office I, then makes the final decision on the basis of the recommendation to
incarcerate, contrary to which no legal recourse can be made (§ 3). The office making the
recommendation will be informed of this decision as well as the party or the person being
relegated to the camp, the district police, and the assembly or work camp that carries out
the decision. The UNS will add a relegation order to the decision, without which the camp
commander may not accept a person. Upon receiving the relegated person, the camp
commander will issue a confirmation, which is to be forwarded to the relegation authority
and the execution authority.

The district police authority will maintain a register of names of the incarcerated persons.

Although legal recourse to the decision to incarcerate is excluded, individuals will submit
requests for dismissal from the camp, or something similar. In this instance, such
requests are to be delivered to the primary court of justice of the administrative authority
and stamped according to the law.

The primary court of justice of the administrative authority will admit such requests into
the process and will check and confirm the submitted information. The district police
authorities will deliver these requests to the commander of the Ustasha Security Service.
The district police authorities will, if necessary, elaborate on the confirmation of the
primary court of justice of the administrative authorities and will cite the number and the
date of the decision of the UNS, Office I. Requests that are to be sent directly to the UNS
will be returned and will follow the prescribed course.

The execution of the regulation will begin on 1 January 1942.

The necessary forms can be gotten from the UNS, Office I (Office of the Ustasha Police
Authority of the NDH—Zagreb Petrinjska Street 7/IV). By 20 December 1941, the districts
will assign a reliable person to fetch these forms from the UNS.

Prepared for the homeland!

Commander

Eugen Kvaternik (handwritten signature)

The accuracy of the copy is attested to for official use.

Secretary of the UNS (Josip Turkalj)

(from A. Miljetic, Das Konzentrationslager Jasenovac 1941-1945, Vol. I, pp. 104-106)

The Various Methods of Killing in Jasenovac

A report by Dr. Nikola Nikolic: Revolver

All Ustasha officers carried revolvers of various, primarily German makes. Matkovic and
Majstorovic had automatic Parabellum pistols. Danon, a former convict and head of
Group "D" of the liquidators in Gradina, also owned a large revolver, with which he liked
to strut around.

Only selected individuals were killed with a revolver at public executions: doctors or
prestigious political opponents. They were killed with a shot in the back of the neck. The
victim had to kneel; his hands were bound with wire; his face toward the ground. Because
of the trauma to the brain, the victim again straightened up, stretched out, and fell
forward. Death usually came quickly. Only if Majstorovic shot at an angle, to "torment the
criminal a bit," did it take hours for the victim to die. No one was allowed to touch him.

The entry wound was always very large, and blood and brain tissue oozed out. The bullet
often exited through one of the eye sockets.

231

232 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC Carbine

Maricic usually used the carbine in the murders in "3C" and at public executions. The
highly explosive shells smashed the heads completely; death came quickly.

Machine Guns

The machine gun "Svarzloze" was used in the first mass murders in Krupnje. First, they
shot the legs then the stomach, and finally through the breast and head. So-called
rebellious elements as well as the Serbs from the Kozara mountains were killed with the
machine gun.

Bombs

With bombs, the Ustashe killed children whom they had thrown alive into ditches in
Gradina. These children often died in advance from fright, horror, and fear, as the
Ustashe themselves told.

Knives

Following the example of Mussolini's fascists, the Ustashe carried knives as stabbing
weapons. It was an obligatory requirement and adornment for the Ustasha uniform, a
murderous symbol of power, like the dagger among the Hitler Youth and Mussolini's
"Black Shirts."

In addition to the knife, the Ustashe also used daggers, double-edged knives, or stilettos
for slaughtering people. The daggers with ornaments, braid work, and the letter "U" were
manufactured in the metal factory in Serin. Master Volf, a prisoner who formerly had
manufactured surgical instruments, was obliged to plate them with nickel. The engraving
was done in the metal-art studio. The dagger was simultaneously decoration and officer's
weapon.

A slaughtering knife once fell into the hands of our partisans. It was a 12 cm long, curved
knife, whose cutting edge was on the outer curve. The blade was attached to an arched,
oval copper plate and this was in turn attached to a thick, leather arm band.
At the end of the blade, directly at the copper plate, the letters "Grafgati Gebr. Solinger"
were engraved, and on the leather arm band was the name of the German firm "Grevizo."
The leather arm band, which had a hole

for the thumb, was worn around the wrist. The other fingers remained free. On the lower
edge, the arm band was pulled tight with a leather strap. For a long time, I contemplated
why the cutting edge was on the outer part of the blade, and concluded the following
about the knife's function: When the user hit his victim in the neck with the knife, he
drew the blade toward himself with the cutting edge turned toward his body and thus the
swing of the movement cut through the whole neck tissue. The killer kept the knife
circling constantly, similar to a turning wheel, so that by means of the swing, the necks of
the innocent victims, held by another killer, were cut through. It was a kind of machine
with a mounted knife that turned and cut off the people's heads with a great speed—a
murderous assembly line for slaughtering people.

Axes

From the groups of Gypsies brought into the camps, the Ustashe selected certain ones
and promised to grant them their life and freedom and to reward them if they would serve
as henchmen. They fed them especially well and gave them a liter of liquor every day so
that they were always drunk. They received axes and wooden hammers as henchmen's
tools. The axes were simple like those that farmers use, with a broad, flat side and set into
beechwood handles. When the victim was unaware, they attacked him in the dark
suddenly with the blunt side. When their victim then fell to the ground, they split his
head, his chest, or his stomach with the blade.

Hatchets

For their slaughtering, the Ustashe also used a carpenter's hatchet, a small tool with a
large, sharp cutting edge. The hatchet is a light-weight tool and because of its large cutting
edge is quite suited to splitting wood. It can also be a terrible weapon.

The Ustashe used hatchets especially in mass killings of women and children. In doing so,
they proceeded as follows: They ordered the victim first to kneel and to place his or her
head so that the neck was on a block of wood. The hands of the victim were tied at his or
her back with a wire. The Ustashe struck through the victim's neck, spinal column, and
arteries. Older people and children were thereby beheaded. Because of paralysis of the
torso when living nerves, blood vessels, and the spinal column are severed, death came
quickly, unless the blow was not strong. People with strong necks often were not killed
immediately, but had to writhe

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

for hours mortally wounded. They were thrown into large mass graves and covered with
dead bodies and dirt without consideration of whether they were still living and twitching.

Killing with the hatchet was carried out by so-called hatchet men at the rim of gigantic
ditches in Sibovi and Colinke. These ditches were dug specifically for these victims. They
were dug by prisoners, usually Gypsies, who later were themselves killed. Without
knowing for whom they were intended, they were digging their own graves, so to speak.

Prisoners who escaped the Ustasha knives in Gradina, saw Gypsies who were themselves
killing with hatchets. I also heard from prisoners in the camps that these Gypsies—forced
by the Ustashe to help them in the mass murders—chopped off the heads of other
prisoners.

Wooden Hammers

As a result of the unexpectedly strong indignation on the part of the Serbs and the
Croatian population, the Ustashe right after the first public mass killings made an effort
to see that the victims in their despair about the threatening liquidation did not get
stirred up. There were some such rebellions in the course of the first mass killings.
Therefore, they had to find killing methods in which the sobbing and the screams of the
victims, who were awaiting their death while standing in rows, could not be heard in the
vicinity. Since they themselves were afraid, the Ustashe screamed at their victims and
lambasted them to quiet them down and to discourage them, and to get them into a state
of passive patience awaiting their death. In the beginning, they used firearms for the mass
liquidations like the Germans, but later, when they were trying to disguise these murders,
they quit using these weapons in most cases, since the shots were revealing what was
going on in the camp not only to the inmates but also to anyone within 5 to 6 kilometers.
Therefore, they later used mainly bludgeons and stabbing weapons, with which they could
kill without noise. In order to carry out the mass murders as quietly as possible, they used
wooden hammers.

The wooden hammer is a wooden cylinder about 50 to 60 centimeters long, whose round
ends have a diameter of 25 to 30 centimeters. For the cylinder, they used very heavy
wood, usually beech or oak; in the absence of these, however, willow wood could be used.
It was set on a wooden handle 80 to 100 centimeters long.

When I once visited the ill veterinarian Drazancic, who was in the horse stall in the
supply room, a prisoner drew my attention to 10 such wooden hammers that were in a
workshop set up especially for them. "They request them constantly, every day. There is
no more beech wood for them."

I stared at this Ustasha invention and tried to imagine its use. "Let's get out of here; it is
dangerous to stand around staring at these clubs. Otherwise, tonight the two of us might
get a hammer in the head. They hide their weapons and are very sensitive when anybody
messes around with their secrets. Let's go!" Comrade Vrancic told me.
With the wooden hammer, they killed very quickly and deftly. Although many prisoners
had told me of these murders that took place at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942,
I didn't get a clear picture of them until the prisoner Satler, who was a doctor, reported:

When the prisoners arrived from Zagreb, primarily laborers, intellectuals, and
Communists, they were liquidated with wooden hammers. It was important to the
Ustashe that the prisoners not notice anything about the executions, which were carried
out as quickly as possible, because the Communists were not to know anything about the
true function of the liquidation camps, so they could not cause an uprising in the camp.
We were forbidden on punishment by death to observe them in their new method of mass
liquidation. This threat, however, could no longer scare us. We were no longer afraid of
death, only of being tortured further.

Before I came to the camp, I would have gone crazy if anyone had forced me to watch this.
No one in the world could have made me watch such a thing. That goes also for everyone
else who watched these mass executions with me. Was it inquisitiveness or a desire for
sensation that drove us to watch this horror? No.

We also wanted to be eyewitnesses to these crimes of the Ustashe. We wanted to be


credible witnesses—at least one of us. We all came from Croatia and were looking for our
acquaintances, but in the mass of mutilated bodies, we could not recognize anyone.

I looked around the corner to see what was going on there. A crowd of prisoners was
standing at the end of a walkway surrounded by Ustasha officers and guards. Milos
Luburic and Matkovic came in and went back out again right away. They passed the crowd
and looked toward the camp to see if by chance any of the inmates was watching.

"Patience! This isn't Tuskanac Park here, but rather a labor camp. You have to be
registered and get your work assignments and places. In case you are sick, you have to be
examined. Otherwise somebody could die and then we would have to inform his family at
home. We are responsible for you." said Luburic to the crowd. And right away everyone
was to walk along the walkway, then everything would go dark, and if the glint of the red
color of blood should glimmer in the dark, then he would fall into the eternal darkness of
Jasenovac death.

The people were gullible. They did not know where they were. They "understood" the
necessity and were waiting patiently for their "turn" and their information was entered
into the protocol, a protocol of death that

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

they didn't at all need, because here it was of no significance to anyone. But the
condemned themselves seriously believed that this was "necessary" and that it was all a
matter of basic administrative affairs, for these were people who were in a camp. But how
little did they realize the depravity of these beasts, who scorned human dignity and
human life—and how near were they to their terrible end in this hell.

We saw how they then were liquidated at the other side of this walkway. When the victim
exited at the other side, he or she looked around uncertainly and suddenly stopped
directly before a closed door. The victim suspected something. Was it the smell of blood
and splattered brains that instinctively led him to suspect the deadly blow in the next
moment? Almost every victim stopped before the door that led into oblivion and over
which the mechanical hammer was hanging that would smash his head. Then the guard
pushed the prisoner and screamed: "Why are you stopping? Go on! Forward! Into the
camp!"

The door was thrust open and the victim made an indecisive step forward. Immediately
behind him, the Ustashe closed the door quickly. Then the Ustashe in the hallway broke
out in laughter. "Into the camp! Hee hee hee, ha ha! He's already there! Ha Ha Ha! He's
gone to the devil!" they laughed and didn't get serious again until they heard the steps of
the next victim.

"Faster, man. We don't have time for your elegant promenade. You're waddling."

Later the guard told us about it quite openly. Behind the door, an Ustasha was hiding with
a hammer in his hand. The victim unsteadily took two or three steps forward and then the
Ustasha henchman dealt him a blow to the head.

Some prisoners watched these events. I looked around to the cowitnesses of these terrible
murders of the people from Zagreb. The camp prisoners who dared risk their lives to see
this horrifying scene were shaken by a convulsive laughter. They had to laugh about the
death grimaces so much that tears came to their eyes. There is nothing astonishing about
the reaction of these witnesses. Because of the constant stimulation, the torments, and
tortures of the prisoners, the old prison inmates watching this gruesome scene were
totally stunned. Every prisoner became numb because he knew that surely the same end
was awaiting him, and often he even wished for a quick death.

Many older prisoners told me that they had watched from the other bank of the Save and
saw the prisoners in Gradina fall to the blows of the wooden hammer. Ten "hammer
men" quickly killed many prisoners kneeling before them, their heads on a block of wood.

With the wooden clubs, the henchmen from the "D" group, then the Gypsies, and then
other Ustashe killed people in Gradina in the darkness. This method of "quiet execution"
was later very popular among the Ustashe.

In order to grant to the weaker or already half dead prisoners in Gradina "the coup de
grace," the Ustashe in Camp "3 D" used wooden hoes and posts. In the mass liquidation of
small children and women in Jasenovac, wooden posts were a favorite tool of mass killing
along with knives.

Criminal Ustashe prisoners held a privileged position in the camp. They worked as
beaters and henchmen and for this got better food. They had permission to kill other
inmates and behaved nauseatingly as spies and denouncers for the Ustashe. Their own
release depended on their loyalty and the extent of their actions in the camp. They
mistreated the political prisoners daily with all their strength, in order to get out of the
camp as soon as possible.

Condemned Ustasha agents of the Security Service were forced to work as guards for the
work on the dam. The length of time that they had to serve in this position depended on
their behavior in the camp. The more brutal and beastial their treatment of the prisoners,
the sooner they could purchase their freedom.

In regard to housing and food, they had the same advantages as the guards. They enjoyed
the freedom to throttle and kill at will. They were especially protected by the upper ranks
among the Ustasha murderers, since their offenses were not political but just criminal!
They had plundered without sharing the booty, had raped Ustasha sympathizers, or such.

The Ustasha agents carried a hidden knife as a weapon and a thick wooden club. As
guards for the work on the dam, they beat anyone who could not dig fast or carry dirt
because of illness or weakness. Every day they killed several people at the dam with their
blows. Around their necks, they wore little crosses and in their hands they held a thick,
long club.

The prisoners who worked on the dam told me of how the Ustashe killed weak prisoners
or even others for whom they had a specific death order. They hit them first with the club
and in doing so became more and more excited, like beasts, and then finally killed them.

"Why are you loitering, you son of a bitch! Do you think this is a tennis court? You must
think you are here for pleasure!" If the prisoner reacted to this, that was enough reason to
murder him. The guard beat him with the stick until he died. These criminals always
struck the head. The victims tried to avoid the blow, they cowered under the blows, and
tried to protect their head with their arms.

The prisoners were also terrorized mentally by the guards, as they threatened to
denounce them or beat them to death. When they attacked anyone especially with their
threats, he had to be prepared for certain death at any moment.

The wounds from the club blows consisted of contusions of the soft spots and of broken
bones especially skull bones and arms, as well as

238 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

bleeding of the inner organs and especially of the brain. Physically weaker persons died
rather quickly from the club blows.

Iron Bars

The Ustashe in Gradina and Ustica also used iron bars to kill children and women. These
iron bars were manufactured in the metal factory in Jasenovac. Similar to the wooden
hammer or the axe, the iron bars were also used to smash the skulls of the prisoners. The
striking instruments then thrust deeply into the head. They were also used to completely
kill victims who were already beaten half dead. Then from the rim of the ditch, they
thrust blindly into the heads, the stomachs, or the hearts. Also a kind of lance and iron
hammers were produced in the metal factory.

Iron Hammers

The iron hammer, a tool for hammering nails, was used to execute children and old and
sick people. They took no regard of the crying and wailing of the children and women.
From the winter of 1941 to the summer of 1942, they killed the children in masses directly
in the camp and bore them on tile carts to the oven of the tile factory. Many people saw
half-dead, beaten children, despairing, with their mouths wide open with horror, and
distorted faces. They were up to 12 or 14 years old, among them were also babies, most of
them of Jewish origin.

Usually they were killed with the hammers on the head. It was important that the brains
and blood flowed. They threw many half dead into the ditches. They were still breathing,
flailing in the ditches, and moved making the earth over the ditch rise, and it seemed that
the ditch was breathing in rhythm.

Hoes

The Ustashe also used hoes as murder weapons against children, the ill, and weak, old
people. They gave the last deadly blow with hoes to the people who were shot and
wounded. The prisoner grave diggers used them when the prisoners they were burying
asked for a coup de grace. The hoe proved to be a very appropriate weapon, and later it
became a favorite of the Ustasha murderers. With it, they struck only the head. The
Ustashe themselves told that Frater Filipovic, "the Satan," killed small children and sick
people quite passionately with the hoe.

Trampling

The trampling of a victim was among the worst kinds of killing, for dying was terribly
slow. In the beginning, it happened frequently. When a victim fell, the guards killed him
or her with their feet. To do it, they kicked the head with the tip of the shoe, in the ribs,
and the sides. The kicks caused severe wounds and indescribable pain. The criminals
stood on the stomach of the victim and danced, i.e., they stood with all their weight first
with one foot then the other on the stomach. The wounds of the inner organs, especially
the liver and the spleen, caused severe inner bleeding; the intestines burst, but the victim
did not die of that, but of shock and the great pain.

I myself had the misfortune of having to watch such a murder in "3C." I saw two facial
expressions: that of the victim with wide open eyes, full of blood, with foam in his mouth,
gasping for air; and the second: the bestially distorted face of the Ustasha murderer,
rabidly foaming, with blood-filled eyes, screaming like a triumphant savage. Two faces:
that of the human victim and that of the human beast. These two have permeated my
memory. They pursue me throughout my whole life.

Belts and Leather Whips

The engineer Picili carried a whip of cow hide. With this whip, he beat some prisoners to
death.

He was a drinker, and this way of murdering pleased him. He was a passionate, active
flagellant. Any little reason was enough for him to kill someone. It was enough that a
prisoner didn't salute him; then he would say: "Why don't you salute the Ustasha
superiors, you beast?" and then he would plunge into the victim with his whip and beat
him to death. Like every Ustasha, Picili too could always find a reason to kill. For them,
there was the unbounded freedom to exercise any imaginable sadism.

I was present at one such murder. Picili beat a prisoner with the whip. He stood in front
of him screaming at him. I could not understand his words, because I was about 20
meters away, but from his facial expression, I saw how he was screaming. "Now you will
see, Doctor, something you never saw before," a prisoner whom I was bandaging
whispered to me.

Picili hit the prisoner again. I saw the victim bend over to protect his head, his arms
raised. Then Picili bellowed at the prisoner again, holding the whip behind his back. The
prisoner winced more and more. His face was distorted from horror, because he knew
what was coming. One blow fell, a second, a third, and then the blows followed one after
the other in streams, like rain, faster and faster, stronger and stronger. The victim

240 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

fell over. We could see how blood was rising into Picili's swollen face. The thick lips hung
down half open, his eyes were wide open. His lower lip quivered, and his head twitched.
His rage had not let up; only his strength diminished. He had grown tired and was resting
in order to gather new strength. His breathing was fast.

After he had recovered, he began to strike anew. The victim screamed out and was
bleeding; the skin was bursting and tearing under the blows from the whip, because a
metal wire was woven into the whip. Picili became more and more out of control.
The screams of the victim, who was tossing and bending, incited him more and more, and
he struck more and more violently and wildly. Then he paused again, gathered his
strength anew, and began again with foam on his mouth, completely out of control. The
beaten man gurgled and twitched, but Picili struck again and again, and even after the
victim was already dead, he continued to strike.

Picili recovered only with great effort when he became aware that the prisoner was dead.
He spit on the dead body and went to the exit. "Look at him! He thinks he can fool me,
me, an Ustasha! He claims he is sick and can't work. Ill give him some of my medicine."
He was screaming like a mad wolf. "They're malingerers, malingerers, Captain," another
beater, called to him. It was Ilija Sablic, called "the uncle," who like Picili carried a whip
and a belt, with which he beat the prisoners.

I often heard the prisoners tell that the Ustashe killed prisoners only with blows from a
belt on the head or on the naked body.

Hanging

Many prisoners were hanged on the great "Poplar of Sighs" in Gradina at the mouth of the
Una as it entered the Save. Someone had hammered gigantic iron nails into the poplar, so
that the hangman could climb up more easily and for the block and tackle with which the
victim was usually hoisted. The prisoner was hanged in such a way that he would remain
alive as long as possible and be tormented. One could hear unbearable screams and sighs
coming from the poplar; therefore it was called the "Poplar of Sighs" by the prisoners and
the Ustashe.

Burning

Burning people alive is one of the most gruesome practices of the dark, Indo-European
epoch and of the medieval European inquisition. The burning

of witches in the Middle Ages represents a religious punishment connected with the myth
of hell. It symbolizes the beginning of the punishment of hell at God's judgment, and the
inquisitor was the representative of divine justice on earth.

The inquisition knew that death by fire caused the victim the most horrible pain and
therefore represents the most severe "punishment for sinners."

In Jasenovac, we saw a revival and reapplication of this method of human immolation by


morally depraved and religiously fanatic butchers with the "great Catholic" Pavelic at their
head, a method tested and proven by the "Holy Roman Alliance" in feudal darkness.

The Ustasha butchers as modern inquisitors of Jasenovac, however, had to adapt this
medieval method to practical and economical standards. Picili set to work to reconstruct
an oven for this purpose in the tile factory. He divided the big tile oven into several ovens
with a common chimney. Each oven could hold a train-car-load of people, i.e., forty to
fifty and about twice as many children. In this improvised Ustasha crematorium in one
night, 450 to 600 people were incinerated. I saw this oven when I walked through the
execution site. It was in a long tunnel. The individual ovens were very large and wide,
about 3 x 4 * 3 meters. The door was opened from the outside, from the tunnel.

The people were brought into the notorious tunnel right up to the oven; there they stayed
until night. Then they were killed with rods, knives, axes, wooden hammers, iron
hammers, or sometimes with a pistol or a rifle.

This caused a terrible panic, but no one could get out of the tunnel. The prisoners huddled
together with bloody heads; they were completely beside themselves, and everyone tried
to hide behind someone else. Almost suffocated, they screamed and pled to God. But
everyone had to die, and neither from God nor from anywhere else did there come a
single spark of hope. The Ustashe surrounded them in this arena; there was no escape.
Some fainted, others became quiet and thought they could perhaps escape if they would
lie down and pretend to be dead. These suffered the most. The janitors and crematorium
employees came and bore them to the big iron door. One opened this hellish gate and a
hot, stinking stream of air heated the faces. The victim was thrown into the fire of this
pyre of Jasenovac: Screams could be heard, millions of sparks from the body's fall and its
last twitches were blown upwards, flames rose, then the dull thud of the heavy iron door.
The dead could, of course, not cry anymore; they only caused millions of sparks to rise
and spread the smell of burning human flesh, an evil, sweet stink.

Loaded box cars brought slaughtered children, girls whose throats had been slit. They
looked like little slain lambs. The bloody heads hung on
The Ustasha's infamous massacre of the Serbs in the Serbian Orthodox church in Glina
took place on 21 August 1941. There was only one survivor, Giebo Jadnak.

The Various Methods of Killing in Jasenovac

243
The mutilated bodies of Serbian victims are displayed by the Ustashe.

Ustashe carrying the head of a Serb Orthodox priest.


Above, This farmer had to dig his own grave. Sadistic Ustashe show him the knife with
which they will kill him.

Below, After the work is done.

250 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC


Above, An Ustasha with a sadistic grin on his face while he chops off the head of a man
with an ax.

Below, A Serb whose head was chopped off by the Ustashe.


Above left, the eyes of this peasant woman were poked out for Ante Pavelic's eyeball
collection.

This page and pp. 252-54: After they had bestially murdered their victims, the Ustashe
took photographs to document their "heroic deeds" for their supervisors.
Above, Partisans fetch the remains of murder victims from the Save after the war. (private
collection)

Below, Bodies washed up on the shore—Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

a thin scrap of tissue at the neck and tossed about in the bumpy box car, like slaughtered
animals in meat wagons. The box cars were pushed by the "silent prisoners," who were
later themselves slaughtered and burned, to be silent forever.

They burned dead people, live ones, unconscious ones, or even people only slightly
wounded.

The great tumult and the confusion at the executions in the tunnel gave the Ustashe
trouble. Someone—probably Matkovic—at some time determined that it made no sense at
all to slaughter the prisoners first and then burn them, because that, after all, was double
the work.

Everything was to be done at once—the killing and getting rid of the people. The door of
the oven was big and the fire terrible. Outside, one did not hear the screams. Picili
bragged about his oven as an ideal apparatus for annihilating the enemy. His suggestion
was heard with enthusiasm.

They began to throw the prisoners into the burning ovens alive, but they didn't predict
that there would be an even greater panic and screaming in the tunnel. Several men were
needed to overcome the victims and throw them into the oven. There was a clawing and
pushing; the prisoners scratched, bit, spit, and screamed. "You cannibals!" "You
inquisitors!" "Madmen," "Deceivers," "Sadists," "Devils," "Beasts," "Miserable ones,"
"Scoundrels," "Cowards," "Traitors," "Slavers," "Servants of Hitler," "Fascist monsters,"
"Henchmen," etc. The Ustashe had neither anticipated nor wanted this reaction. They
were incensed, for they were afraid that this noise would reach the whole camp and
outside, and therefore gave up burning the prisoners alive. They returned to their old
methods.

Another difficulty for them consisted of the fact that the ovens were not airtight and had
no professional ventilation like proper crematoriums built for the burning of bodies. It
was impossible to solve this problem technically: something new, more perfect had to be
built, and Picili was given this task. He was to build an "ideal extermination factory" in
which people would be killed without being able to defend themselves, easily and silently.
At the same time there were to be no remains. Picili actually did design a plan for such a
factory of total extermination in Gradina: a poison-gas chamber with a modern
crematorium in one building.

The smell of burned hair and burned human flesh emanated from Picili's ovens in the tile
factory. It spread not only in the camp but also penetrated into the village of Jasenovac
and to the train station. In the surrounding villages, the rumor spread that the Ustashe
were burning people alive in the tile factory. That was heard by the farmers of Jasenovac,
from Grabje, and the vicinity, and spread everywhere. All through Croatia went a wave of
shock and protest; therefore, Luburic, a deputy of Pavelic, called a meeting in the village
of Jasenovac and threatened the farmers publicly:

Even among you Croats, we have enemies, as it seems to me. We will tolerate no one near
our camp, where we have incarcerated our enemies, who want to bury our state. It is said
that we are such criminals that we burn people alive in the oven. Anyone whom we
execute has been sentenced by the law and is killed publicly. We don't need to hide that
fact; our enemies haven't handled us with kid gloves, either. If anyone tells you that we
are burning people alive, then just send him to me and he will have to show me where we
are burning them.

This threat shut many mouths.

The people in the village and in the camp became silent, deadly still, and whenever they
smelled the stink in the night and looked through the window to see the black smoke
rising from the great chimney of the tile factory, they drew together in fear and crawled
trembling under the covers.

Every morning the prisoners had to sweep the ashes from Picili's oven. They found
burned human bones, jaws, teeth, spines, which were apparently the most resistant to the
temperature. Not accustomed to this, the new arrivals drew back in horror and froze.

"What are you staring at, you animal! Get on with it! Clean up, quickly!" screamed the
Ustasha at them and a blow with a club on the back followed. These cleaners also had the
task of strewing the pools of blood in the tunnel with lime.

Undoubtedly death entered quickly for the victims, who were thrown into the oven at
over 200 degrees, because of the pain, the expectation of death, and the shock, which
stops the heart. But this moment must have been horrifying; nothing in the world can be
more horrible. The faces of these people were seen only by those who pushed them into
the oven.

No human is capable of imagining all the terrible torment and feelings in the moment of
the worst torture in this fascist camp.

Crematory

Since the Ustasha leaders had already long lost any human, moral attitudes, they were
thinking only of how they could install the mechanism of mass liquidation most
successfully. They had great difficulties, however, in finding a method suitable for
disposing of the corpses of their victims without leaving behind clues. In search of
possibilities of disposing of the bodies of the slaughtered and tortured communists and
antifascists, the inventive Ustashe finally came upon the "ring oven" in the tile factory of
the camp.

At the beginning of January 1942, the Ustasha Ivica Matkovic assumed the command of
the camp and along with the engineer Picili discovered

260 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

that this oven could be adapted to burn the bodies. One only had to remodel the space in
the tunnel into a crematory.

In January 1942, only one oven in the tile factory was converted for the incineration of
people; it took about 40 victims. Incarcerated masters rebuilt this crematory in the camp
in the conviction that here the bodies of prisoners were to be burned who had died
overnight in the barracks of typhus, starvation, or beatings. Therefore, they were not
much concerned about building this crematory. The Ustashe also had not revealed their
intention, because in the beginning they did not want anyone to know what was actually
being built here. They gave orders to tell people that clay figures of some of the prisoners
would be fired. Thus the newly built crematory got the name of the "pottery shed."

Matkovic and Picili wanted to exterminate the people like vermin or rats and to simplify
the process of mass extermination even more by bringing the heedless prisoners,
completely unaware of what would happen to them here, to the door of the oven, to the
edge of this truly hellish abyss. Then with a sudden jerk the door would be opened and
the prisoners pushed in, and thus plunged alive into the glowing fire.

The first transport of victims came from Stara Gradiska and consisted of women,
children, Jews, communists, and partisans. They were to be the guinea pigs for the
combined technique of simultaneous mass murder and corpse disposal. But this Gestapo-
Ustasha mechanism didn't work at the first attempt. The first group brought to the edge
of the oven could not be pushed up to the door, but instead began to scream and cry in
horror. The Ustashe plunged with their bayonets into the front of the crowd and pushed
them against the oven door of the "pottery shed." When the door suddenly opened and a
group of women and children fell into the fire, terrible cries of horror could be heard.
Women and children tried to squeeze away from this door in wild panic and hurled
themselves onto the Ustasha bayonets. There was an indescribable tumult. Some women
fell dead out of horror, others fainted, some were trampled to death, some murdered with
the bayonets, others were able to scratch the eyes of the Ustashe with their fingernails in
the tumult.

When the Ustashe saw that the women were breaking through the chain of guards in wild
panic and would be able to plunge out into the camp, they killed them all on the spot with
rapid-fire weapons.

The majority of the Ustashe were no longer in favor of this method of killing after this
first failed attempt. They suggested with a certain caution to return to the old method of
mass liquidation with all sorts of knives and firearms—and also at the former cite in
Gradina.

"You know, Lieutenant, in the forsaken desert, where for miles clear up to the forest there
is nary a soul, they can scream as much as they want;

to hell with them. But here directly under the nose of the villagers, it is not so good!"
With these words, even the Ustasha officer Marinka Polic, the well known butcher of
Jasenovac, suggested returning to the old cite.

"We will make a few more tries because in case we find the right method of eliminating
our enemies completely with one blow, it will be a good example for all other fascist
countries allied with us, and in any case one of the most reliable methods; because the
bodies must not be buried, and there will be no trace of them. They will go up in smoke,
in the air in countless invisible little atoms," Picili replied to him, and Matkovic agreed.
Another group of prisoners came from a camp in an unknown area of Slavonia. They, too,
were pushed maliciously into the tunnel and forced up to the feared oven of the "pottery
shed." Since there was a hefty heat emanating from this "pottery shed," the women,
children, and old people from Slavonia would not go near it, but recoiled from the hellish
door as if they knew the horror awaiting them there. Then the Ustashe began to yell at
them, to curse them, and threaten to shoot them with the machine guns if they didn't go
on to the door. But the prisoners did not yield. Then they shot into the front rank and
killed several women and children. The prisoners then really became enraged, especially
women cursed the poglavnik and the Ustashe as beasts, lackeys of the Germans, and
traitors of their own people. The women grabbed the guns and grabbed any fallen Ustasha
by the throat.

"What whore gave birth to you!"screamed the women. After the Ustashe had managed to
free themselves, they stepped back and in rage killed the women with machine guns. The
bodies had to be burned, and the Ustashe looked for people in the camp suitable for this
task. They picked 8 men under the command of Dudica Baranon to throw the bodies into
the oven. In this time, the infamous Group "D" began their work in the camp.

Although they had succeeded in spite of everything to throw a small group of prisoners,
mostly women and children into the glowing oven, after a few failed attempts the Ustashe
declined to burn prisoners. They rejected the further use of this "Matkovic-Picili" method,
i.e., to kill and burn the bodies at the same time. So they killed the victims first, either
behind the "Officers Canteen" or in the tunnel in front of the "pottery shed," with wooden
hammers, knives, or with clubs and bludgeons, and turned the bodies over to the grave
diggers.

The Group "D" of the grave diggers then stacked up the bodies— especially those of the
slaughtered children. They pushed them on train cars into the tile factory and laid them
in the oven. Only then did they light the oven.

From January to May 1942, the infamous "pottery shed" worked every

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

day unceasingly. Black, terribly stifling smoke and an unbearable stink irritated the
throats of the prisoners. It was a nightmare.

"But what's the matter with you, for Christ's sake? You have to eat something, at least,"
Kabilio cajoled his comrade Rafo Musafija. "I can't. I can't breathe because of the
stinking, black smoke from the pottery shed. This terrible stink of something burning is
driving me crazy ... I can't, brother, I can't! If I would only die soon! I can't breathe this
stifling smoke nor smell it any longer. I also can't stand to know any more what they are
doing with the people in this hell. If I would only die soon, brother. Soon, because I can't
stand it any more. To know that these are women and children, maybe our sisters,
brothers, and mothers, is more terrible than the pain and death. It is hell to bear such
torment, to breathe and smell the smoke of the burned bodies of our comrades, our
people ... Is there anything any more terrible?!"

The burning of the bodies of our comrades, of the Ustasha victims killed first with
bludgeons and knives, usually slaughtered with knives or their heads smashed with
wooden hammers, was continued stubbornly by the Jasenovac Ustashe up to the moment
when the stifling, specific stink, which all day long and in the night poured from the tall
chimney of the camp crematory at Jasenovac, simply became unbearable. It alarmed the
farmers of Jasenovac, who grumbled softly and fearfully that not only dead people but
also living people were being burned in the camp. The reaction of the public in Croatia to
these rumors was so strong that the Ustashe had to stop this practice.

And thus the "pottery shed" of the Jasenovac camp no longer fulfilled its task after the
end of May 1942.

Later the Group "D" of the grave diggers no longer buried the tortured and murdered
inmates directly in the camp but in Gradina and in Ustice.

This terrible time of the "pottery shed" of Jasenovac remained an indelible impression in
the memory of all of those camp prisoners who by chance remained alive.

Singeing of Sensitive Body Parts

Singeing with hot irons was practiced in the torture chamber of Cividini. Torture with hot
irons preceded the death of Dr. Shor and his family. The torments and pain evoked
insanity in this doctor before his death in the fall of 1942.

Freezing

In the winter of 1941-42 and of 1942-43, the Ustashe allowed no heat in the barracks,
which were built without insulation and without a ceiling. Under the roof was a large
empty space, and the barracks stood on posts. Icy wind cooled the thin wooden walls and
blew the snow into the rooms. With big frost welts on their feet, their stomachs inflated
from hunger, in rags and with any sort of tatters on their feet, the people did not survive
long. They died working, even without any "help" from the Ustashe, when the water froze
in their legs and in their stomach—a result of hunger.

The extermination machinery used every means to kill as many people as possible. The
henchmen did not sleep. In bitter cold, they drove the prisoners to work and to shoveling
snow. In doing so, they had to shovel the snow into a pile to the side. When they were
finished with that, the Ustashe ordered the snow to be shoveled to the other side, just to
expose them, half naked and frozen through, to the cold as long as possible. The number
of the frozen climbed quickly, but the train brought more and more new groups from
Zagreb, Bjelovar, Sarajevo, and from the vicinity of the camp. Before they started out for
Gradina and mass extermination, the Ustashe undressed them down to a shirt and
underpants and drove them barefoot and bound through the snow to the ferry in order to
get them there under the axe, the knife, or the wooden hammer. The people were so
frozen that they could hardly move any more; and that is precisely what the Ustashe
wanted. Often the prisoners wished to be executed as soon as possible, for these tortures
were no longer bearable.

In the winter, the Ustashe punished prisoners by locking them in a tiny cage in just a
shirt and underpants barefoot, for a few hours. On the next day they were dead, of course.

The camp M 3C" was designated for the liquidation. This camp consisted of low huts
made of reeds and completely open on one side. In this camp were prisoners in winter
also but they died soon of the cold and of typhus.

Also in the work on the dam, people were killed by the cold. They were ordered to stand in
water up to their hips and to dig. As punishment, they also had to lie on their backs. Often
because of the cold they got acute pneumonia or died of heart attack.

The fact that already at moderately low temperatures many signs of freezing showed up,
especially on the feet and unprotected body parts, must be ascribed especially to
organisms being weakened by hunger, malnutrition, and poor blood.

"Sir, the wounds on your feet are open. You must have enjoyed the pubs." That is how
Maricic jeered as he led the prisoners to extermination at night.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

The frosted parts stunk terribly, and the victims of gangrene were admitted to the
hospital, precisely so that they would suffer as long as possible. "Even you shits should
get a little perfume. You stink like skunks."

The frostbite soon became severe, burning blood poisoning or tetanus. Even the slightest
cold killed the weakened people and brought them down in masses, even before the
Ustashe came with the wooden hammers.

Poison Gas

The first experiments with poison gas were carried out in the veterinary chamber in the
work room of the so-called "Economy," where mangy horses were healed. The horses
were handled in such a way that the rump was in the chamber and only the head
protruded. For the treatment, sulphur dioxide was used. They also tried this poison on
people, as well as Zyklon.

In the first experiments, it was discovered, however, that the victims, because of the
permeability of the walls and the crude introduction of the gas, did not die so quickly and
so easily and that they also revealed the cite of their torture by their terrible screams. In
this chamber, other gases were also tried for killing prisoners, but without success.

Suffocating

The Ustashe carried out strangling with the bare hands individually with certain prisoners
kept isolated in cells. I heard that some female Ustasha guards such as Maja Buzdan and
Milka Pribanic, both from Zagreb, specialized in this in the camp Stara Gradiska. Cividini
strangled prisoners in his torture chamber when he was trying to get them to confess.
Ustasha officers strangled women whom they had selected for their orgies and had raped.
Even babies and small children were strangled by the Ustashe right in Gradina.

Another form of killing consisted of sticking children alive in sacks, tying them up, and
throwing them into a big ditch where their slaughtered mothers already lay. Then they
covered the sacks with dirt. Babies were also drowned in water.

Starvation

Killing by starvation represents yet another terrible chapter in the extermination camp at
Jasenovac. The many killing methods of the Nazi system

were also carried out here according to the models of Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, and
elsewhere.

The method of killing people through physical debilitation would not have been so
successful if it had not been combined with death by starvation. Accordingly, the
organism of those whom one wanted to "liquidate easily"— so that it would appear to an
outsider that they had died a "natural death"— would be attacked from two sides at the
same time: He would be forced into difficult and extensive work, broken psychically by
vexation, terror, etc., and the absolute necessary nutrition had to be withheld. The body
first draws on its reserves and then consumes its own matter according to the
physiological laws of maintaining its functions. Through nutritional deprivation, the
organism is exhausted down to the end.

The killing of people through withholding nutrition, combined with heavy work, is based
on science. Nazi doctors, German fascist counselors, invented this method and suggested
it to Hitler and the German general staff as they inquired about a fast but clandestine and
"natural" possibility of mass liquidation. There is no doubt that this plan of extermination
stems from Hitler's scientific advisers. Their method was used with great success in the
prison camps in Germany, Poland, in the Ukraine, in the west and the north of occupied
Europe. The Ustashe adopted this death mechanism from the Nazis and used it in the
extermination camps of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska.

The "lunch" meal in Jasenovac consisted of a completely watery, salty soup with some
potato peels. In the evening there was turnip soup, sometimes with five or six beans. The
bread was to amount to 65 grams per day. On three to four days in the week, no bread at
all was distributed. Accordingly, the calories in the food did not amount to more than 500
per day, which is a deficit of 2000 to 2500 calories for every prisoner.

You can imagine how quickly the prisoners in the concentration camp at Jasenovac lost
weight, for the work was precisely calculated and organized.

On the basis of physical exertion, many suffered from acute heart disease and died of
paralysis of the heart muscle. Collapsing from heart failure was common. It happened
most frequently in the tile factory. About five to eight people died every day of acute heart
failure.

The workers on the Jasenovac dam and in the tile factory frequently had swollen legs, so-
called Jasenovac beriberi. The appearance of these people was typical: the face was pale,
the wrinkles were prominent, the lines had been deeply engraved, the eyes under the
eyebrows were sunken, the eyelids pale grey and blood shot. A prisoner suffering from
this illness leaned backwards, breathed with difficulty, and dragged his legs—his
"columns"—out of the mud with great difficulty; they were either wrapped with rags or
were simply bare. Because of the great water pressure, the

266 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

legs burst, and a yellowish fluid flowed from the breaks.

"I feel better when the water is flowing, right away. It doesn't draw so much, and it
doesn't burn." "Yes, they feel rheumatic, these damned legs, rheumatic, as if they were
wrapped with rubber. The vessels burst. My legs twinge and burn just like yours." That is
how the conversation of these condemned people ran in this fascist arena.

Of course, the wounds then became infected, turned black; and the infection soon took
over the whole leg. Then there was no more salvation, because the victim got neither food
nor medication.

"Oh, you don't need a clinic, dear professor. The doctors here can't do anything. Stand up;
we will get a better doctor." With these words, the Ustasha picked him up. They brought
him to Gradina, "so he won't have to suffer any more."

The swelling of the legs, the so-called Jasenovac beriberi, and secondary complication
came quickly, just like the "natural" death, even without the Ustasha knives. The collapse
of the organism was inevitable within ten to fourteen days work in the tile factory or on
the dam.

The method of chronic starvation, combined with hard forced labor, was used throughout
the concentration camps in Yugoslavia, especially in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska.
In December 1942, the Ustasha doctor, Dr. Jurcev, got instructions to take me to the camp
Stara Gradiska, so that I, an epidemiologist, could find out what could be done about
typhus in the camp. The Ustashe allowed this access, because they themselves were afraid
of typhus, for the louse that spreads this disease did not stop at the cannibalistic letter
"U" nor at the Ustasha uniform. At the same time, the Ustashe wanted to give the
appearance that they were doing everything they could to cure the prisoners of typhus
and that they were innocent of the high death rate from this disease.

I stayed overnight in the camp. Upon this occasion, I examined the blood of many
prisoners, and we succeeded in smuggling samples into the health office in Zagreb. I
knew that there Dr. Daro Filipovic would inform not only the relatives of the prisoners
but also the public about the epidemic in the camps and about the mass mortality of the
prisoners from spotted typhus. As we heard in the fall of 1942 in the camp, the health
office then offered a whole train load of disinfection tools, so the whole camp could be
disinfected. But the Ustashe, of course, refused this totally. The epidemic was killing the
prisoners mercilessly and unceasingly.

On the basis of the great protest against their crimes, the Ustashe decided in December
1942 to interrupt the massacre for a while. They did this because the Nazis were facing
unexpected difficulties from the extent of the partisan war. The German schoolmasters
were accusing the Ustashe

of causing the rebellion by the open liquidation and the poorly hidden bloodthirsty,
gruesome activities, which were driving the people to defend themselves out of despair.
They did not say this out of humanitarian reasons, but out of fear of a rebellion in
Yugoslavia, the neighbor of the Third Reich. The German fascists had been convinced that
they could break any resistance in Yugoslavia with their terror. Since they had been
mistaken, they now placed the guilt for their failure on their lackeys.

A German officer intervened in Jasenovac. At the office of an Ustasha administrator, he


spoke for another, "more humane" treatment of the incarcerated citizens and attacked the
gruesomeness of the butchers.

"What do you want? We are doing everything that you told us and taught us to do!"
replied the Ustasha and thus shut him up.

The Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic, One of the Commandants of Jasenovac

Several members of the clergy of archbishop Stepinac were involved in the responsible
functions in Jasenovac. The Pater Miroslav Filipovic-Majsto-rovic, pastor and Ustasha
captain, was a clergyman of the Pavelic Brigade and thereafter was director in Jasenovac.
Other clergymen in Jasenovac were Zvonimir Brekalo, Ustasha captain and chaplain of
the Pavelic Brigade, as well as Lipovac, Culina, Cvitan, and others.
Pater Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic was known for the great massacre around Banja
Luka, at which in the beginning of February 1942, about 2,200 Serbs were killed. The
district leader in Banja Luka sent the following report to the UNS in Zagreb:

Secret radio message

To the Directorship for Public Order and Security in Zagreb

In connection with V.T.ll of the 9th of this month, I report: A company of the Ustasha
battalion under the command of First Lieutenant Josip Mislov, accompanied by Pater
Vjekoslav Filipovic, on 7 February at 4 o'clock in the morning, occupied the mine at
Rakovac and killed 37 Greek-Eastern laborers with picks—stop—The liquidation of the
Greek-Eastern men, women, and children with picks and axes was continued in the
villages of Motika, where about 715 people were killed, Drakulic, and Sargovac, where
about 1,500 people were killed.—stop—The killings ended on the same day around 14.00
hours—stop—From then on until today, the Ustashe have been transporting the food, the
animals, and the household objects out of the houses of the killed into their camps—stop
—a thorough report will follow—stop.

268

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Facsimile of the secret radio message from the district leader Aleman about Pater
Filipovic.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

The District leader Aleman

(Archives of Vladimir Dedijer)

The State Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their
Helpers has presented in documents 9164-9170 of 5 June 1945 the following testimony
against Filipovic:

Dr. Josip Riboli from Zagreb, Skrlceva Street 5, enters the following protocol on 28 May
1945:

"The deputy camp commandant in Jasenovac was Frater Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic.


When we got to the camp, Luburic left and Majstorovic ordered six people killed, six more
to be fettered, and the other five taken to the camp. At that time he was at the rank of an
Ustasha First Lieutenant. Of all the butchers, Filipovic-Majstorovic was the most
bloodthirsty. . . . Mass murders and liquidations usually began in the evening after he had
put on green coveralls. While he was sitting at the lunch table, an Ustasha came and
reported something to him. Shortly thereafter he brought a prisoner. Filipovic-
Majstorovic put down his knife and fork, pulled a revolver, and shot the prisoner in
question. Supposedly he had tried to escape. I saw that with my own eyes. Another time,
six Gypsies were caught trying to steal gold. Filipovic, as camp commander, condemned
them to death. All six had to kneel before him, and he himself put a bullet into the back of
the head of each of them. Because one of them still showed signs of life, Serbean
Matijevic cut his throat with a knife.

"... In mid-summer of the year 1941, the farmers of Kozara were brought into the camp at
Jasenovac. A Serb child about 14 years old tried to flee, but was caught and brought to the
priest Miroslav Filipovic, who without even listening to the child, killed him with a
hammer blow to the head. Every day young women were brought into the camp, well
dressed, apparently students. There were about 10 to 15 of them. They were brought over
the Save on the ferry followed by the Ustasha offcers, among them always Frater
Filipovic, the Ustasha First Lieutenant. They returned smeared with blood and nervous,
while the women never returned.

"In the summer of 1943, nine Slovene priests of the Catholic faith came to the camp and
were shot on the orders of Luburic."

Duro Pejnovic, graduate in law, born 1917 in Pracan in Petrinje county, now in Zagreb
with the army brigade "Vlado Cetkovic," entered the following protocol before the State
Commission for the Determination of Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers under
the document number 9164-9170 on 5 June 1945:

Once ten to twelve Serbs were brought to the camp. Frater Miroslav Filipovic walked up
to them and placed a chain tightly around each one's head. Then he took the pick axe and
with the broad side struck the chains so powerfully over their skulls that they all passed
out.

Another time twelve Gypsies were brought to the camp and were directed to Division 3 C.
On the way, Frater Miroslav Filipovic and the engineer Picili were waiting for them. They
ordered the Gypsies to lie on the ground and killed them one after the other by hitting
them on the head with wooden hammers.

Slavko Dobrila, 26 years old, born in Pula, residing in Zagreb, Trnjanski Zavoj II Nr. 16,
enters the following into protocol before the State Commission for the Determination of
Crimes of the Occupiers and their Helpers under document number 9164-9170 on 5 June
1945:

In December 1942, we, 50 inmates, were at work, I as a mechanic sharpening saws, the
others chopping wood. Around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Frater Filipovic came with First
Lieutenant Rostas and had us stand in formation. Then he took a machine gun and shot a
bullet into the head of each one by one. I was standing as the ninth in the row. When he
tried to shoot at me, First Lieutenant Rostas stopped him and said: "Not this one. He is a
trained mechanic." Then he pulled me from the row and with his helpers shot all the
others. First Lieutenant Rostas then asked me if I had seen anything, whereupon I replied
that I had seen nothing. Therefore, he left me alone. After my group had been killed, I was
taken on the same day to Gradiska, where we Catholics all went to midnight mass.
Filipovic-Majstorovic offered a pious prayer. At roll call the next morning, Filipovic
wished us all happy holidays. To me he said: "Don't worry, my friend, everything will be
all right." On the third day after Christmas, Filipovic shot nine Jews and declared: "Justice
has been done."

Testimony of 15 February 1946 by Josip Matijevic, born on 5 October 1921 in Donji


Andrijevci, Slavonski Brod county, son of Petar and Marija nee Markovac, chauffeur,
Croat, residing in Donji Andrijevci, attended public school up to the 4th class and four
more classes at the upper school. Active Ustasha since 8 August 1941.

The above-named person was transferred from his position as commander of the watch
guarding the camp into service in Jasenovac on 11 November 1941. He entered the
following testimony about the activity of the director and individual functionaries in the
camp.

The above-named person was warned to tell the truth, with the admonition that false
witness and deceit in the investigation would be charged to him as aggravating
circumstances.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

What do you know about the activity of individual priests in the camp? How did they
behave toward prisoners? Did they take part in the murders and in the slaughters of
prisoners?

In 1944 I came into service in Jasenovac for the second time as commander of the tank
company at the rank of a lieutenant. I found many troops in the camps of Jasenovac and
Stara Gradiska. At the time of the NDH, there was also a rather large number of priests in
the army, who were to fulfill religious duties in the army. However, they not only did not
fulfill these duties conscientiously, but behaved quite to the contrary. If they held pious
speeches for the army on one hand, they themselves did the opposite of what they
preached and were not even a little bit religious. Especially the Ustasha priest Zvonko
Brekalo was prominent among them, who constantly wore an Ustasha uniform, carried a
revolver, and wore a cross on his chest in order to make himself known as a priest. Over
the cross was the inscription "Everything for the poglavnik," under the cross stood:
"Ustasha Defense." He knew the prisoners and took confession from those who wanted it.
What he learned from that, he passed on to the Ustasha commanders of the camp. This
was frequently repeated, and if a prisoner did not want to confess his "guilt" in regard to
the Ustasha authorities, he was persuaded to confess and Brekalo transmitted the
confession to the camp commander, who subsequently tortured and liquidated the
prisoner.

Furthermore, this Brekalo regularly held drunken orgies and along with his colleagues
and with the Ustasha priests Culina and Zvonko Lipovac led an immoral life. One day,
when I was the officer on duty and was walking past the room of the priests Brekalo and
Culina, I saw the two completely drunk sitting at the table. This was not the first time, but
was practically a constant state for the two. They were arguing and cursing each other
with nasty, hurtful words. I admonished them personally to stop, because soldiers were
listening outside. The priests Brekalo and Lipovac were accustomed to going frequently to
Bosanska Dubica, where they had splendid dinners in the company of the Ustasha captain
Josip Sudar, and to which they also invited women with whom they enjoyed themselves.
The women stayed in their company until late in the night, often until dawn. When the
three broke off after such a dinner, one would call to the other: "That was really
Christian."

The second priest known for his deeds in the camp was Culina. In the army, people said
about him: "He jumps in wherever he can," or: "He forbids us something and speaks of
God; but he himself goes whoring around quite nicely. What kind of a priest is that?"
Once when he was returning from a liquidation in which he personally had slaughtered
people, he bragged about it to the battalion commander Majic and the other offcers and
said while pointing to his knife. "Even this little knife has some value," and everybody
laughed.

Then I knew Frater Zvonko Filipovic, a priest from Jajce, called Majs-torovic, at the rank
of a battalion commander. At that time he filled the

function of the camp commander. Already as a priest in Jajce, he had killed several Serbs
who had been caught by the Ustashe. After that he came to Jasenovac under the name of
Majstorovic as camp commander. He was gruesome and enjoyed killing. A great many
prisoners were executed during his time of camp leadership. When he was sent to the
front as commander of the battalion, he set many villages afire and slaughtered the
residents, especially on the island of Kozara and near Bosanska Dubica. There along with
Captain Ivan, i.e., Joja Sera, he captured all the Orthodox people, mowed them down to
the last one, and threw them into the Una. In hearings, he forced confessions by torture
and beating; he was, quite simply, a big henchman. When he was commander in Dubica,
the priests Brekalo, Lipovac, and Culina often came to him and drank and ate all night in
his apartment. At such banquets there were also all sorts of loose women.

I draw attention to the fact that all of these killed as priests, beat, plundered, and tortured
the prisoners in a bestial manner.

With my life and my signature, I attest to the correctness and truth of the above.

Josip Matijevic

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Facsimile of the testimony of the Ustasha Josip Matijevic about the work of individual
priests in the Jasenovac camp.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

Excerpt from the hearing of the Franciscan Miroslav Majstorovic Filipovic before the
Commission to Determine War Crimes, Document number 2006:

Protocol of 25 June 1945

Hearing of Miroslav Filipovic, born on 5 June 1915 in Jajce, father's name Ante, mother's
name Marica, nee Radulovic. Diploma from the upper school in Visoko and from the
seminary in Sarajevo. In 1939 he was ordained as priest and until the end of 1941 served
in Petricevac near Banja Luka. On 1 January 1942, he was called to Banja Luka as chaplain
of the brigade P.T.S., where he stayed until the end of June 1942. Then he was accused
before a German war court. Maks Luburic arranged for his freedom and brought him to
Jasenovac, where he was introduced under the name of Majstorovic.

There he was camp commandant until 27 October 1942, then he served the same function
in the camp in Stara Gradiska. He remained there until 20 March 1943 and was then
transferred to Mostar as adjutant to Colonel Simic. There he got the name Karlovic and
stayed until 20 December 1943; he was subsequently transferred to Zagreb and placed at
the disposal of the command of the Ustasha Defense Service. He remained there until 23
April 1944, when he was raised to the rank of an Ustasha battalion commander under his
proper name Filipovic. From there he was transferred to Lika as a staff member of the
Fourth Ustasha Brigade, where he stayed until 12 September of the same year. Then he
was commandant of the Koza area until 2 January 1945. Subsequently he was entrusted
with the special assignment of directing the secret service in East Bosnia, which observed
the movements and the advances of the Cetniks from Serbia and Montenegro into the
NDH. From there he gradually retreated with the army to Zagreb and from there to
Slovenia and Austria, where he was turned over to the British. On 31 May, the allies
turned him over to the Yugoslav army.

When did you enter the Ustasha movement and what were your duties?

In October 1940, I took the Ustasha oath before Dr. Viktor Gutic. In the Ustasha
movement, I exercised no political, but rather only military functions at the rank of a
battalion commander.

Who suspended you from the office of priest?

In 1942 when I was a chaplain in the brigade P.T.S. in Banja Luka, the battalion of the
Ustasha that I was accompanying as chaplain took up action in the Cetnik village of
Drakulic without my knowing what would happen. The battalion liquidated this village
completely, and for this reason the papal legate Marcone suspended me. I was taken
before the court, and Luburic transferred me to Jasenovac as camp commandant.

How many prisoners came into the camp and how many were liquidated while you were
camp commandant?

During my four-month duty as cormmander, about 30,000 prisoners came into the camp.
For them, Jasenovac was a transition camp to the nearby prison camps Mlaka, Bosanska,
Dubica, Jablanac, Mededa, and Hrvatska Dubica. The prisoners had been captured in the
Kozara mountains after the joint offensive of the Germans and the Ustashe. In the course
of two weeks, about 40,000 prisoners came through this camp. Most of them were taken
to work in Germany or were resettled in Slavonia, while about 3000 were kept in the
Jasenovac camp to build the dam. During my time as commandant in the Jasenovac
camp, there were primarily groups of Gypsies and Jews there. They were all killed in the
course of four months—with the exception of professionals, who were in the central camp
of Croatian prisoners. These were killed at the Save with wooden hammers or shot. The
killing of prisoners was carried out partially by a specially chosen group of Gypsies,
partially by the Ustashe themselves.

How many Serbs were killed in the NDH up until now, in your opinion?

According to reports of Maks Luburic, who probably keeps the lists of killed Serbs, about
a half million Serbs were killed in the NDH during these four years. That includes also
those Serbs who died in battle.

How many prisoners came through the camp during this time when you were
commandant in Gradiska, and how many were liquidated?

I was commandant in Gradiska for five months, and in this time 5,000 political prisoners
came to the camp, among them about 1000 Jews. Also at the time of any tenure in
Gradiska, about 1000 Serbs came from the German camps. When the orders came from
Luburic that they had to be liquidated, they were deported to Mlaka and Jablanac and
killed there. In Gradiska, the prisoners were mainly Croats; the liquidations were carried
out individually and upon special orders.

Who gave the orders to liquidate the prisoners?

In my opinion, exclusively Maks Luburic gave the orders for the liquidation of the
prisoners. He also gave me personally—or indirectly through his deputy Matkovic—orders
to liquidate the Serbs.

What did the Church authorities do to prevent the mass murders in the camps?

I know from conversations with Maks Luburic that Stepinac protested against these deeds
in the camps while he was at bishops' conferences and at meetings. Publicly, however, as
far as I know, no one protested.

What instructions did you receive in regard to your behavior toward the Serb people while
you were director of the camp?

Maks Luburic told me personally and also told the other officers and soldiers that we
were to make every effort to eliminate without mercy all the Serbs in the NDH. This was
the program that had to be carried out.

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

The protocol has been read to me, everything has been recorded as I said it.

Continuation of the hearing on 29 June 1945.

[...]

Through the distribution of leaflets, I was active in the propaganda and took part in secret
meetings and in the work in the villages. Following orders, I secretly acquired weapons in
the expectation that the day of liberation and of the poglavnik as the rejuvenator of the
NDH would soon come.
At the beginning of 1941, this question became real and especially moved the Croatian
citizens, the farmers, and especially the young clergy, while the older ones remained
reserved regarding the matter.

After the capitulation of the former Yugoslavia and the proclamation of the NDH, Dr.
Gutic assumed power, but as decent as he was as a revolutionary and as much as he was
behind the thing with body and soul, his reputation was damaged by the errors of his
brother Blazo, the former police chief and by the errors of a mine official by the name of
Pensa and all his closest circle of acquaintances, who made important administrative
decisions and gave orders while drinking and at banquets.

The liquidation of the Serbs began. . . .

Then I was basically against it, because the people were not selected but were simply
liquidated one after the other by the hundreds. Several times we tried to protest calmly to
Dr. Gutic, but without success. When we pointed out the injustice, we were told that we
should pray to God and not bother with it any longer. We priests lodged criticisms here
and there, but we remained nationalists without any revolutionary spirit. And when the
Cetniks appeared and began to repay in kind (i.e., were the first in the Krajina to begin to
burn and raze whole villages), we kept our mouths shut. The old Franciscans, especially
the Bishop Garic and the Paters Miron, Jozo Lopar, and Peter Ante Hrvat, became
completely passive and estranged to the movement because of these events.

In January 1942, the 1st battalion of the P.T.S. was stationed in Banja Luka, and another
company came, whose commander was the captain of the battalion P.T.B., Nikola Zelic,
called Ciko. I was engaged right away as chaplain, while Z. Brekalo was already in the 8th
battalion of the army in Banja Luka. The 8th battalion fought mainly against the Cetniks,
who had appeared in strong groups and were slaughtering and burning everything that
was Croatian. Thus at the beginning or middle of February 1942, a company of the 8th
battalion was ambushed in busses near Celinac, and there were several wounded and nine
disfigured Ustashe. In the village Drakulic, five to six kilometers from Banja Luka, the
Cetniks had been organized earlier, and they were not just simple workers from the mine
at Rakovic, like the public and the propaganda maintained. The commander, Captain
Zelic, led the action. I got to sleep in the barracks without knowing when we would go
into action accompanying the battalion as priest, according to orders. Not

The Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic, One of the Commandants of Jasenovac Til

until supper time did I learn the goal and purpose of this action. I must mention that a
few days earlier we had discussed the danger afforded by the Cetniks and that something
had to be done about the organization of this group. The whole public was talking about it
then, and Dr. Gutic, Brekalo, myself, Vilko Butorac, and others spoke with Captain Zelic,
but I did not know that a complete liquidation was to be carried out.
We started out at 1 o'clock in the morning; the commander was First Lieutenant Jozo
Mislov. Since I knew the farmers of the parish where I had served, I brought the leaders
there in the belief that there would be only a search and that those who were found with
weapons would be punished. But one after the other was hit. Then I saw for the first time
people awash in blood like animals. I could do nothing about it and withdrew. Only on the
next morning did I realize that I had made a mistake. Since I wanted the dead to be
buried, I went with the troop again to the site, but they only fetched the animals and the
food. In the villages of Drakulic, Sargovac, and Motike, about 1,500 to 2,000 Serb men,
women, and children were killed.

The then traffic minister (Hirnlija) Beslagic raised a complaint, snice he hated the monks
because he was involved in a suit with them regarding the land and because the Serbs
from the village Drakulic were materially dependant on him, inasmuch as they were
farming his lands. He was joined in his complaint by the district director Aleman and
almost the whole capitalistic establishment, not out of any moralistic grounds, but simply
out of fear of revenge and to disguise their own enrichment. At their side was the Italian
consul and the German command. Then from the quarters of the poglavnik, the colonel of
the P.T.V Bego Servatzy was sent, who pushed all the guilt for the massacre onto me, so
that the Pavelic guard would not be seen as common butchers. Along with the others, he
publicly made me look like the spiritual originator of the massacre and the instigator of
everything that had happened. I had too little power to fight against these greats and
therefore had to accept the burden and the whole guilt.

Captain Zelic and First Lieutenant Milos were simply transferred after a short house
arrest; I, however, was tossed in prison in Zagreb in the Savska Cesta (street), where I was
treated as a common prisoner. I had only the privilege of getting food and sleeping in a
single cell. The people's representatives of the former HSS, Ljubicic, Radman, and
Budimirovic, joined forces and also acquired the papal legate Marcone (who was then of a
fascist mind), and he, too, depicted me before the Church forum as the instigator of the
massacre.

In Savska Cesta, I stayed 105 days. Very often I was visited by Jozo Rukavina, the police
chief, and others, who brought me various reports from the responsible places, although
the Germans as well as the Italians were demanding my head from the Croatian
government of the NDH. These suggestions were so strong that I, too, was soon
convinced that I was the guilty one and that I had to accept the punishment, although I
had described the whole state of affairs to the responsible authorities. But they did not

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

reply, but instead consoled me daily that I had nothing to fear, even if they were to turn
me over to the Germans or the Italians, since they were covering me and would substitute
another person in my place. ... I became impatient and nervous in the prison, while I was
waiting to see what would happen with me and who would be playing with my fate. I lost
courage and did not have the situation under control.

On 8 June 1942, the prison in Savska Cesta was informed by telephone that I was to get
ready. Ten minutes later, the private car from Maks Lubu-ric arrived and took me to the
police offices. I had escaped the prison and got the assignment to report the next morning
to the office III of the Defense "Ravsigur" [Directorship of Security, note by A. Miletic] to
the officer in charge, Luburic. Before this, I knew him only by sight, and when he came,
he explained to me that I had to be taken for a while to Jasenovac for safety's sake; he
said he had arranged it with Moskov; it was to be only for a short time. Literally he told
me: "Until further notice, you are now Ustasha First Lieutenant Miro Majstorovic." The
tone was commanding and serious; already as a small child, I had learned not to ask for
reasons and was used to carrying out orders blindly; and this I obeyed this time, too.

On 10 June, I arrived in Jasenovac. The reception was very friendly, and I had the
impression that my arrival had already been prepared. I was received by the First
Lieutenants Buntic and Ljubo Milos. Contrary to custom, they led me right away to the
camp near the tile factory, gave me food and drink, ironed me a uniform, since I had
arrived in civvies, and then we spent the time talking during a walk. Yes, I confess, the
friendliness and the intimacy upon first meeting surprised me pleasantly. First
Lieutenant Milos was the commander of the assembly camps (the camps Jasenovac, Stara
Gradiska, and Dakovo), Buntic was his deputy, First Lieutenant Drago Pudic was the
commandant of the Jasenovac camp, Oreskovic of Stara Gradiska, and Lieutertant Joso
Matijevic of Dakovo. For me, that was all still an incomprehensible and not
understandable society and surroundings. Nevertheless, the first days were pleasant for
me. I had a decent residence, food in the mess hall, good attendance, and a chauffeur, a
car, a mechanic, who was to teach me how to drive a car and a motorcycle (the now
partisan Stanko Jacev, whom I also retained later as my chauffeur). I detected an
instinctive inclination to this man, whom I looked after and, just like a few others, argued
for his release. I liked to go for a ride, and thus the time passed pleasantly. The Gypsies,
who came to the camp in large numbers at this time, raised our spirits with monkeys and
bears, songs and music.

At that time in the camp, the "gold affairs" of Ljubo, the brother of Matkovic, and others
came to light, and additionally the affairs of the Jewish freemen (Bruno) Dijamantstajn,
Pajtas, (Herman) Spiler, and other suppressors, who were regular tyrants in the camp.
They did more evil and shed more blood than any camp Ustasha. Later I was told that
Feldbauer (Jew and head administrator, who died of typhus) and the above-mentioned
Bruno Dijamantstajn, Pajtas, Spiler (Begovic, the office manager of the work
detail) and Viner (camp administrator) killed thousands upon thousands of Jews through
forced work on the construction of the first dam. My task was to lead these investigations.
Finally Ljubo, Matkovic, and two other Ustashe (I don't remember their names) were
shot because of mishandling of huge amounts of gold and jewelry. I detected a special
satisfaction for having unmasked these violators, and I was so successful in it that I got
the assignment of personally executing them. Luboric said to me: "Get at it, Majstorovic,
learn something. n I cannot describe how I felt in my heart as I shot nine Jews like an
automaton before the eyes of the whole camp and saw a human being twitching in his
blood, even if this was a thief and violator and it was not just one, but nine. I must
emphasize that among the prisoners after the execution of this death sentence, there was
great satisfaction and lightening of spirits, because the sentenced ones were so hated for
their gruesomeness.

On 27 June, Luburic came to Jasenovac again and called me to him: "From today on, you
are the commandant of Camp III, that is, the tile factory." I tried to wriggle out and
pointed to the fact that I could not accept this position of authority, because I was only a
newcomer to the camp and was perhaps not mature, etc. But he replied. "Now here are
Ljubo and Matkovic at your side and will guide you concerning what is to be done and
how to begin." He also emphasized that First Lieutenant Pudic was sick and that he had to
go have treatment; I, on the other hand, was healthy and strong; I therefore had to carry
on for a while in this very difficult position. Really, it is the most diffcult task being
commandant of Camp III, the tile factory, and I accepted it in silence this time, too. At the
end of June, Pudic was sent to treatment, and he was forbidden to return to Jasenovac. I
requested this, because already on the second day, because of some triviality in the camp,
he hit a Jew, whom I protected. His nerves were completely ruined, and besides, he had
drunk too much alcohol.

Right in the first days, I was told that some Jewish engineer by the name of Danon had
escaped. Since I did not know who he was, I accepted this news with indifference and
thought that this was neither the first nor the last. Only later did I learn the significance
and the danger that his escape meant for the camp, because Danon was initiated into all
the secrets of the camp, even those that were still unknown to me. Then Ljubo, Milos, and
Buntic came to investigate personally. All work was stopped; the camp was locked up; no
one came in or out. I went with them to the spot and familiarized myself with the
situation.

Engineer Danon was leader of the group of Jews and Gypsies who had personally carried
out the mass liquidation of the camp prisoners. The system of the reciprocal liquidation
of prisoners had been introduced. This affected Gypsies and Jews, who arrived in groups,
while the central camp, the regular population, was entered into the files and the register.
Among the registered prisoners, there were mainly professionals or Croats who were

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC


less dangerous or were less guilty. Except for individual, temporary changes, they were
spared. Prisoners of this type in the camp at that time amounted to about 2,500 to 3,000.

In his flight, Danon also took along a large amount of gold and jewelry. It was also not
difficult for him to flee, because he was on the Bosnian side of the camp, which was fired
upon and attacked every evening by the partisans. The area controlled by the partisans in
the forests along the mouth of the Una was hardly 1,000 meters away. With such nightly
shooting, there were several times unrest and preparations for resistance, which the
planted informers loyally uncovered. Such attempts were nipped in the bud by liquidating
whole groups. Luburic held speeches for us and at every one of his visits made it clear
that the Serbs had to be exterminated unconditionally. He was accustomed to saying: Pay
attention to our Croats, who are less dangerous; they will improve and be useful to the
people.

He was just as merciless with the criminals. They were to be liquidated immediately,
because human society had only problems and injury from them and no use, while he
telephoned a hundred times from Zagreb for the Serbs and arranged liquidations, by
name as well as by whole groups. Every time he asked for a brief overview of the groups
and their numbers, and then gave instructions in absentia usually through Matkovic or
Ljubo and frequently through me. I was much concerned with the establishment of
residence buildings, repaired and built several barracks, and looked after discipline, order,
and cleanliness among the prisoners and especially among the Ustashe, whom I punished
in all possible ways and for all possible infractions; I interfered with any reckless behavior
and individual chastisements.

At that time, the action in the Kozara mountains was just ended, and because of the bad
reputation of Jasenovac, the Germans and the former Croatian government demanded
that the work ministry in conjunction with the Red Cross, the army and the empowered
minister Turin organize the camps of prisoners and evacuees and that the Ustasha
Defense have nothing more to do with them. But since this involved several tens of
thousands of prisoners and since neither an organization was carried out nor food and
security for the prisoners provided, the prisoners fled as soon as they were brought to the
determined site, so that the whole work was nevertheless entrusted to the Ustasha
Defense. There were German commissions there, who constantly were mustering the
prisoners, putting them to work, and deporting them to Germany.

Maks gave me orders to take several thousand people secretly to Jasenovac, because at
that time we needed labor for the construction of the dam and for other objectives. In
doing so, we deported older women, children, old and feeble people and resettled them in
Slavonia, to Pakrac, Da-ruvar, Pozega, etc.

I believe that during my time, 25,000 to 30,000 prisoners were liquidated or died, mainly
Gypsies, Jews, and Serbs from the Kozara mountains, who were returning from the
German camps or from Slavonia and were returned
to Jasenovac. Sometimes I participated in the liquidations, later (after I was guilty of
murders) specifically as supervisor; I can no more deny that than I can deny the fact that
I myself killed a few upon these occasions. It must be emphasized that in the numbers
mentioned above there are many who died of typhus or exhaustion (spotted typhus raged
several times in Jasenovac, stomach typhus constantly, even among the Ustashe).

A few times the Germans demanded access to the camp. But there was a strict order to
prevent this, even if it meant a use of weapons; that also applied for anyone who did not
belong to camp assignment.

Interference in the camp and any intervention on behalf of prisoners were strictly
forbidden and dangerous for anyone. The camp administration had no direct connections,
either administratively or officially, that did not go via the command of the assembly
camps in Jasenovac nor via its Office III "Ravsigur" in Zagreb, the camp administration;
and it was also forbidden to remove any information, or data from the camp. So in the
camp we neither knew anything nor were we informed, since these directives from
Luburic came either from his own initiative or on orders from above. We were convinced
that it was his initiative. At the end of October 1942, the volunteer regiment for
Hercegovina was formed from the ranks of the Ustasha Defense. Before their departure,
Luburic said: "Jasenovac is exposed, and it appears that we will have to dissolve it, but we
must preserve the good reputation of the camp at Stara Gradiska. Therefore, nothing dare
happen there, and you, Majstorovic, as a man who observes orders, will assume the
command in the camp at Stara Gradiska. ..."

On 27 October, I was transferred to the Stara Gradiska camp as commandant and


maintained this function.

Since the Stara Gradiska camp was organized to a degree right from the beginning and the
work program had started, it contained primarily those Croats who according to the
administration in Zagreb were not to be liquidated, also those who were needed as skilled
workers in the camp shops, as well as those who were politically important for them. The
latter were kept in cells and attention was given so that nothing would happen to them.
The Stara Gradiska camp was much smaller than the Jasenovac camp, both in regard to
the number of prisoners and to the size. The number of prisoners did not vary in this
camp on the whole during that entire time, except for minor changes. As I learned, mass
liquidations were carried out in the camp a few times. For example, several hundred
prisoners, men and women, were locked in the tower under the direction of First
Lieutenant Oreskovic and were poisoned with Zyankali after a few days of incarceration.

It happened that the prisoners in Gradiska were killed in the same way as in Jasenovac,
but not in such large numbers.

At the end of 1942, strictest instructions came from Luburic a few times that the Stara
Gradiska camp was in no way to experience the same things
282 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

as in Jasenovac. Directly before my arrival, while First Lieutenant Gacic was in charge for
a short time, forty prisoners were incarcerated in the prison who were left to starve.
When they tried to break out, this was called a rebellion, so they were captured still in the
camp and shot.

At the beginning of 1943, when the Jasenovac camp was dissolved and only Stara
Gradiska remained as a reception camp, Luburic gave instructions to liquidate anyone
only upon his personal orders. That one was then to be taken to Jasenovac and in no case
was to be liquidated in Gradiska. Then the orders came to release individuals from the
camp, while at the same time orders were given to undertake secret liquidations and to
note in the records that death had come about from disease. This happened several times.
The usual execution method was shooting, but it sometimes happened that it was done by
other methods, the wooden hammer, the axe, or the knife. The victims were buried in the
cemetery directly adjacent to the camp. At the beginning of 1943, a conspiracy of Jews was
discovered, who were intending to murder leading personnel in the camp. Nine persons,
whose guilt was established in an investigative process, were shot publicly.

On 23 December 1942, three prisoners who were on their way to Bosanska Gradiska to
repair the city electric plant and had tools with them killed an Ustasha with a hammer
and injured another so severely that he also died of his wounds; they then fled. In an
investigative process, possible connections were examined, whereupon several people in
the camp were arrested. On the same day, on the farm in Bistrica where a grotto of
prisoners were felling trees, a guard on a truck was disarmed and removed, while the
guard on another truck was killed. Immediately everyone was convinced that the two
cases were related and that a common rebellion was planned. The incidents were
investigated, the group from Bistrica was taken to the camp, and it was learned that the
whole matter and even the rebellion, which was to be used for an escape, had been
organized by the Jews themselves, independent from the other prisoners. Then about
sixty prisoners were shot.

As far as I know, except for the starvation of the above-mentioned forty prisoners and the
poisoning by Zyankali outside the investigation department, there were neither tortures
nor any other mistreatment of prisoners. The investigation department probably
threatened beatings during the inquiry or tormented in other ways, but I was personally
not present as a witness in any instance.

[...]

I was in Jasenovac as an Ustasha offcer and camp director from the end of June 1942 to
the end of October 1942. I admit that I personally killed about 100 prisoners in the
Jasenovac camp and in Stara Gradiska in public shootings. I admit also that during my
directorship of the Jasenovac camp, mass murders were carried out in Gradina in which I
did not participate, although I knew of them. I correct myself: I did take part in these
mass murders, but did not carry them out. I permitted these mass murders as

the director, because I had oral instructions from Ljubo Milos and more often from Ivica
Matkovic, sometimes also from Max Luburic.

In Gradina, killing with wooden hammers took place, specifically by having the victim
climb down into the ditch and then hitting him from behind with the hammer. The
murders also took place by shooting and slaughtering. I know that in the liquidation of
women and girls in Gradina, the younger ones among them were also raped. The decision
about this was made by Ivica Matkovic, while, as far as I know, the Gypsies, specifically
the grave diggers among them, committed the rapes. I myself committed no rapes. . . .

During my tenure, 20,000 to 30,000 prisoners were liquidated in the Jasenovac camp
according to my figures. I especially emphasize that at the beginning of the summer in
Jasenovac, the liquidations were carried out in the Dakovo camp. This liquidation was
directed by the Ustasha Lieutenant Joso Matijevic. I believe that in this liquidation about
2,000 to 3,000 Jewish women and their children were killed.

At the end of October 1942 up to 27 March 1943 I came from Jasenovac to the Stara
Gradiska camp. During this time, mass liquidations were taking place in the Stara
Gradiska camp, which were usually carried out outside the camp, e.g., in Mlaca, Jablanac,
or in Jasenovac. The big transports to the liquidations were likewise carried out on the
orders of Ivica Matkovic. In this manner, about 2,000 to 3,000 people were led off. . . .

On 16 April 1945, I came back to Jasenovac, where I stayed until the end. I know that
during this time the bodies of prisoners were removed from Gradina and were burned in
order to erase the traces of the former crimes. I did not take part in the liquidation of the
last prisoners, only in the exhumations.

[•]

The "Holy Masses" of Ivica Brkljacic

In the summer of 1943, the former priest Ivica Brkljacic, one of the most despicable
personalities, was designated commandant of the Jasenovac camp. If anyone would claim
to be a Croat, Brkljacic would reply the following:

The Serbs came because they are Serbs, the Jews because they are Jews, and you came
only as traitors, as communists, as bitter enemies of the Holy Church and our
Independent Croatia. Therefore, you traitorous bastards, you have to suffer the worst hell
on earth! Heel!

And then the Ustashe would attack to the point of exhaustion, until they were satisfied
and tired of this bestial work.
An active communist back then informed all newcomers that in no case were they to say
that they were Croats. When the first group came from Zagreb, the prisoners tried to get
this information to the imprisoned communists already along the way. Thus Ivica
Skomrak's group was informed in time by the communist engineer Dorde Puhac, and
when Ivica was asked his name, he told the commandant: "Svetozar Miskovic."

"I thought you were Svetozar Pribicevic, and I was about to destroy you. Serb?"

"Orthodox."

"Serb. Now out with it, damn it, why are you afraid?!" "OK, Serb!"

"In any case, you are more decent and better than our Croatian traitor-communists"—and
then Brkljacic only ground his teeth.

This malicious fox developed a clever method of getting at the secrets

284

of the prisoners. He erected an altar in one of the halls of the woodshop. Through the
group leader, he arranged that all Catholic Croats without exception had to take part in
the holy mass that would be held every Sunday at 10 o'clock in the morning to 1 o'clock in
the afternoon. At this opportunity, confession was to be heard from the Catholics and
communion given.

This news excited the communist activists in the camp very much. That was a new trap of
the clerical Ustashe especially since the group leaders announced that a special food dish
would be set for the Catholics.

"Their despicable intentions are obvious. That is a new attempt by the clerical Ustashe to
break the solidarity of the camp prisoners and to force the national-chauvinistic division
into 'the hungry' and 'the fed.'

"And the confession, ha!? That is the real trap, comrades. He thinks that we are so soft
and moralistic from hunger that he can get secrets about the illegal work out of us
inmates, maybe even the ties to those who have remained opposed to the occupiers and
the Ustasha robbers," whispered Mokosek, the communist worker from Zagreb, barely
audible.

Already on the first Sunday, the "church" filled with Croatian "Catholics," of which over
80 percent were communists and atheists.

Brkljacic even managed to get ceremonial vestments for the celebration of the holy mass.
In this church, a confessional was also set up for one of the most sinister inquisitors, a
master of torture, of slaughter, and murder of all sorts.
All the prisoners had to enter the confessional from which the evil spirit whispered.

"Brother in Christ, where have you sinned against our Holy Church, of which our
Independent Croatia is a part, and where have you sinned against our independence? You
stand here before God's court, and all your sins will be forgiven you, if you properly rue
them and confess them in this holy confessional. This is not an investigation, but a holy
confession only through which you can purge yourself. It is your duty to go home to your
Christian family and to work for your new state. You need have no fear; only this can help
you to get out of the camp."

Most of the prisoners easily recognized what this scoundrel was trying to get out of them
and replied accordingly:

"Reverend, I am an anxious person and am afraid of the war and the battle, and, as you
know, I am a deserter. I couldn't face being sent to the eastern front, and I fled on the
way."

"Have no fear; here you stand before God. This is not the police; it is a part of God's
kingdom, in which holy confessional confidentiality reigns," said Pope Brkljacic.

"You know, Reverend, it is sufficient just to have one enemy who

PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

gives you away. I have nothing else on my conscience, and I love my homeland."

"Dominus tecum fili mini!" Then he whispered something else, made the sign of the cross
over him, and released him as one who is prepared for the holy communion.

Most of the prisoners were not fooled, but there were some who actually confessed that
they had sinned against the NDH.

"You are honest, and for that we will reward you specially, and the dear Lord will forgive
you." The dangerous and refined Pope Brkljacic as commandant of the extermination
camp did not send these prisoners to Gradina for execution right away, but transferred
them to supposedly better places, where they eventually disappeared. They were all killed
in Gradina. When this became known, the prisoners were at the "holy" confession in the
church of the Jasenovac camp, which served as a special method for flushing out the
prisoners.

After the confession, the pope put on the ceremonial garb and celebrated the holy mass
and communion. Meanwhile, he held a "holy" sermon and then ended the "holy liturgy."
He designated an incarcerated Catholic priest as mass assistant, who was accused of
having connections to the partisans.
When the prisoners returned from the mass, a special kettle of good food was waiting for
them, while the other kettle was filled with only hot water and a few beans. By order of
the communist prisoners, the kettles were combined, and all the camp prisoners got the
same food. Thus this provocation in Gestapo and Ustasha style, which was to lead to
fights among the prisoners, was nipped in the bud.

One Sunday, the evening meal was conducted as on an assembly line and with the pope's
mechanical adeptness. The holy mass ended quickly. When the prisoners came out of the
slaughter church of Jasenovac, they were instructed to go to their cells immediately and
not to leave them until they got orders. If anyone was caught outside, he would be killed
on the spot. This was no empty threat, but rather in actuality a fervently held wish on the
part of the slaughterers.

All the old prisoners knew very well that during their confinement something would
happen that was to be kept from the prisoners at any cost. But what? The prisoners
wanted to know, because they were sure that it could be some horrendous murder.

In the camp, bands of the slaughterers were running around and looking into the barracks
to see whether anyone was peeping out at some secret spot.

The big building of the metal workshop was across from the slaughterers' command post,
and in front of it was an open area leading toward the camp gate, from which one could
see the mess hall, the bell tower,

the ammunition storehouse, and the watch tower. In front of the Ustasha officers* mess
hall, stood a summer pavilion, in which the leaders of the slaughterers often sat and ate
their meals.

In the attic of the metal workshop, above the camp hall and the gunsmithy, slept the
camp prisoners who worked as metal workers in the workshop. Out of foresight and as
preventive measures, they bored a secret hole in the front wall, in which there were
neither windows nor any other openings; from this hole they could observe the open area
in front of the central command post and the mess hall. Of course, the Ustashe knew
nothing of this observation station, the discovery of which would have cost the heads of
all the residents of this attic. The camp prisoners took advantage of this observation
station and quickly informed the others in the camp about any dangerous happenings and
carryings-on of the slaughterers. They noted when Gestapo functionaries and officers
from the 55 units or the Ustasha leaders showed up.

An hour after the mass, Drago Luter, Ivica Skomrak, and Puhaca Dorde, who were kept in
this attic, ran to the observation station, because they knew that something important
was about to happen in the area in front of the slaughterers' command post. Through the
observation station, they saw Priest Brkljacic eating lunch and being served by the
Ustashe, because the prisoners who usually worked as waiters were locked up. Suddenly
an Ustasha came, reported something to him, and left quickly. After a minute, the same
Ustasha brought prisoners who were rather well dressed. They were intellectuals. Later
we learned that it was the group from Sarajevo.

Once he had brought the prisoners, Brkjiacic lunged into them and began to stab them
with a knife. The screams and calls for help were indescribable. The dead bodies lay there
motionless while the Ustashe wiped their bloody knives on their suits. Brkljacic laughed
and continued his lunch. Thus ended the last part of the holy mass.

(from Dr. N. Nikolic, The Camp of the Village Jasenovac, pp. 382-85)

The Mass Murder of Children

The mass murder of children in the Independent State of Croatia, especially in the
concentration camps of the Ustashe between 1941 and 1945 [. . .]

The events from the past of a people fade in time and are forgotten if no one writes them
down. Therefore, it is properly said: Anything that isn't written down didn't happen.

The question arises whether, after decades have passed, one can portray faithfully and as
objectively as possible with the help of documents the collective fate of more than 20,000
children, Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Croats, Moslems—the fate of children who were chopped
into pieces and burned in Pavelic's collaborator state. Although it is difficult to describe
adequately in words the extent of the inhumanity and the number of the committed
crimes, I nevertheless consider it possible to depict the painful and bloody truth, which
never dare be forgotten nor repeated as long as the earth still turns and people live on it.

The fate of children, especially in great tragedies, has always stirred the world. The fascist
invasion and occupation in our country after 1941 turned their fate, especially in the
territory of the so-called NDH, into a severe national misfortune. The evil, the sickness,
the criminal behavior, i.e., the typical signs of fascism, reached their high point in the
mass murder of children, of a sort that the history of our country never saw before. As
soon as the so-called NDH was set up under the protection of German weapons on 10
April 1941, the propaganda lies of the Nazi regime began, which was to be based
throughout the whole war on the group of fanaticized and chauvinistically hate-filled
Ustasha terrorists. The regime of the occupiers and collaborators first of all targeted the
destruction of

288

the national unity on religious and national levels, and signs of the catastrophe of a civil
war began to show.

The Germans, the Ustashe, the Cetniks, the Italians, and the Hungarians, on the basis of
our current state of investigation and on the basis of confirmed numbers, killed 16,137
children, from babies up to fourteen-year-olds. In doing so, they used methods that are
not comprehensible to a healthy mind. The children were shot and slaughtered with
knives, axes, and hatchets, burned at home or in crematoriums, boiled in kettles, tied up
in sacks and thrown into rivers and wells, put alive into caves and grottos, poisoned with
Zyankali and caustic soda, or eliminated by hunger, cold, and thirst.

When the Ustasha ministers—Mile Budak, Milovan Zanic, and Mirko Puk—in May 1941
publicly declared: We will kill a third of the Serbs, deport a third, and convert a third to
Catholicism and thus eliminate the bums from the NDH, this declaration was much like a
law. Viktor Gutic, too, staff chief and one of the most prominent representatives of
Ustasha terrorism, threatened: "We will send these Serb Gypsies to Serbia, some by train,
some on the Save, but without a ship. We will rout the unwanted elements so that no
trace of them will remain, and the only thing that will remain of them will be the bad
memory of them. All this Serb trash over 15 years old we will kill; we will put their
children in cloisters and make good Catholics of them."

The Catholic Church authorities gave their blessing to the mass murder of children right
after the establishment of the NDH. How much hatred was used in the preparation of this
great crime is made clear by the statement by Dionizije Juricevic, an Ustasha and priest in
Pavelic's and Artokovic's special department for religion: "In this country, no one but the
Croats can live, and anyone who does not accept conversion, we know what to do with
him, where to send him. Today it is not a sin to kill even a small child who stands in the
way of the Ustasha movement. You need not think that I, because I am a priest, could not
take a machine gun in hand and wipe out everything, right down to a baby, that is
opposed to the Ustasha rule and the Ustasha state."

In the village of Mistra near Cazin, the Ustashe killed 60 women and 90 children; they
locked 100 women and children in the house of Ilija Trbojevic and burned them. In the
villages in the vicinity of Bosanski Petrovac, Krnjeus, Vrtoc, and Bravsko, they murdered
260 women and children. In the village of Tuk Dzevera, they burned 52 mothers with
their children in one house.

In the summer days of the year 1941, a battalion of Pavelic killed about 6,000 men and
women and 668 children in Bosanska Krajina.

290 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

[...]

The 17th of February 1942 went into the annals of the most startling crimes which took
place in the area below the Kozara mountains: On this day, members of the Pavelic
battalion killed 2,300 inhabitants of Drakulic, Sargovac, and Motike, villages near Banja
Luka. The high point of the Ustasha barbarism was the massacre of 538 children.
Miroslav Filipovic, who was known as Pater Majstorovic, the chaplain of the cloister in
Pitri-cevac and one of the worst slaughterers in the Jasenovac camp, killed as the first the
child of Duro Glamocanin and in doing so called out: "Herewith I baptize these offspring
in the name of God and assume all sins unto myself."

The crimes at the Kozara mountains multiplied. The witnesses gave such gruesome
reports that it is difficult to believe them.

In the house of Mikan Jandric, they chopped up a child. While her mother, Dara Banovic
was holding her to her breast, the four-year-old Radoslavka and the two-year-old Bosko
were stabbed; Grozda Adzic was tied to the threshold and had to watch her baby burning
in its crib, while the Ustashe smothered her second child in a ditch with calcium
hydroxide; the six-year-old Miodrag Kecman was forced to watch the death of his
grandmother Staka and his mother Radojka, then an Ustasha took an axe and cut off the
child's right hand on a block used for chopping wood, so that he would never be able to
shoot when he got older; in the village of Koturevi, the Ustashe killed two children of
Sima and Ko-vilika Kondic. Blagoja was three years old and Mara six months when the
criminal impaled them on his bayonet and carried them through the village.

After the well-known offensive in the Kozara mountains in the summer of 1942, because
of the military failures, the enemy released his entire rage on the population of the
Potkozarje area.

In the last order of General Friedrich Stahl, who commanded the operation in the Kozara
mountains on 18 June 1942, he says literally:

Today the undertaking of the battle group "West Bosnia" in the area of Kozara and
Prosara was ended. The entire population of the encompassed area was resettled and thus
a thorough purge was carried out.

Stahl was absolutely right.

One hundred forty villages of Potkozarje were depopulated and razed, and the inhabitants
were taken to assembly camps and concentration camps: Cerovljani near Hrvatska
Dubica, Jasenovac, Mlaka, Jablanac, Stara Gra-diska, Novska, Prijedor, and Zemun. In all,
there were 68,600 people from

the Kozara area, among them 23,858 children, from babies to fourteen-year-olds.

What the children had to experience in the Ustasha camps is a singular example of
human suffering in the history of war. The Ustasha criminals' method of handling the
children was terrible. In the camps of Jadov-no near Gospic, Lobograd, Jasenovac, Stara
Gradiska, Dakovo, Kruscica, Tenje, and Sajmiste near Belgrade, they left behind a
terrifying witness to their existence. The ingenious plan of the fascists decided the fate of
over 20,000 children.
I cannot help reporting at least three examples from the countless numbers of terrifying
testimony about the mass misery of the children in the camps. First Lieutenant Schmidt
Zabijerov, the German representative for the recruiting of labor for the Third Reich from
the Stara Gradiska camp, noted on 12 July 1942:

The prisoners there are recruited from the Orthodox; there are several thousand,
primarily women and children, since the men have already been transported to the Reich.
Since only families with older children can still be taken, the youngest are left to the
welfare of the Croatian state. The necessary result is the dividing of families. I have seen
several hundred children in one yard, already separated from their mothers, awaiting
their further fate. They were lying in the yard under the open sky crying and begging for
food and water.

Marijana Amulic, prisoner in the women's camp in Stara Gradiska, remembers the
following:

The children were lying there helpless, even too weak to cry. They were dying slowly and
quietly. About 20 female prisoners, themselves as helpless as the children, were taking
care of them. Once we were ordered to fetch all the sick children and to house them in the
attic rooms of the infamous tower. Then Ante Vrban, the commandant of the camp, had
poison gas injected into the rooms. Then there was an eerie silence in the camp, as if life
itself had been extinguished.

In the whole territory of the NDH—22 districts, 142 counties, and 102 communities—the
total extermination of the Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and later even other opponents of the
Ustasha movement was carried out. In doing so, not even the children were spared. The
purges of individual areas in Lika, Banija, Kordun, Slavonia, Srem, Bosnia, and in
Hercegovina— the resettlements, the arrests, the internments in camps, the conversions,
and the physical annihilations—increased to a horrifying extent.

292 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

In one of the first documents, the Memorandum Nr. 1 from the Directory for
Reconstruction, it says:

The resettling of the Serbs is to be carried out unsparingly, the arrests and internments
must be carried out day and night without interruption. The arrested person is obligated
to get ready within 30 minutes. His property is to be confiscated and the Directory for
Reconstruction will dispose of it. If possible, whole families are to be arrested. Older
people, women, and children cannot be spared.

This was only the beginning.

The first bullets rained on the Serbs from Gudovac, Brezovica, and from several villages
near Bjelovar on 28 April 1941: 243 people were killed and thrown into a mass grave.
According to incomplete accounts, just in June, July, and August 1941, over 60,000 people
from the vicinity of Glina, Dvor on the Una, Lapic, Gospic, Vrgin-Most, Bihac, Krupa,
Cazin, Kulen-Vakuf, Kladusa, Bosan-ski Petrovac, Mrkonjic-Grad, Kljuc, Sanski Most,
Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bosanski Novi, Bosanska Gradiska, Sarajevo, Vlasenica, Srebrenica,
Ro-gatica, Cajnic, Foca, Visegrad, Mostar, Gacko, Nevesinje, Trebinje, Bileca, and Stolac
were killed. How many children were among them cannot yet be determined with
certainty, because research is still in progress.

Men, women, and children were killed en masse in the most gruesome ways. They were
nailed to house doors, burned along with their families, tossed alive into mountain
crevasses, caves, and grottos. The ravines in Lika, Bosanska Krajina, and in Hercegovina
filled with bodies. Eight hundred sixty men, women, and children were plunged into the
ravine of Delica Jama. This is a natural cave, which was later covered and cemented by
the Italians. Also the ravine Vucja Jama near Cazin became a grave for several thousand
people. In the 47-meter-deep ravine of Ravni Dolac near Livno, 220 women and children
were tossed. The Ustasha police in Bileca reported to their superiors that the 75 caves and
ravines in their territory offered room for over 8,000 people.

Recently I read the following document:

In the Dakovo camp, the Ustashe tormented children before the eyes of their mothers by
throwing bread crumbs among the starving children and setting police dogs on them as
soon as they approached the bread. When a child had been bitten by a raging dog, they
locked the child and the dog in some corner of the camp, before the eyes of the horrified
mothers. While one could hear the screaming of the child that was struggling with the
incited dog, the Ustashe played the harmonica.

With the founding of the three special camps for "re-education" of children of the
partisans in Gornja Rijeka near Krizevci, Jastrebarsko, and Sisak on 12 July 1942, which
took place upon the decision of Ante Pave-lic, the leader of the NDH, and Andrija
Artukovic, the interior minister, the high point of the extermination action against
children was reached. These were the only camps in Europe, perhaps even in the whole
world, that were established for prisoners in diapers.

In the Gornja Rijeka camp, which was set up in a Jewish castle, 400 young Janicares were
held, of which more than half died in a short time.

The children's camp in Jastrebarsko was organized the best and was under the
directorship of the sisters of the "Saint Vinko Paulski" congregation with Barto Pulheri as
their leader, who especially distinguished herself by her gruesome activity against the
children. Three thousand two hundred thirty-six children went through the camp in
Jastrebarsko, of which according to official figures of the work ministry 449 died, and
according to the diary of Franjo Ilovar, the attendant of the village cemetery in
Jastrebarsko, 768 died.

The third and largest children's camp was in Sisak and was under the protectorship of the
Ustasha movement "Women's Tendril" and the Ustasha Security Service. In this camp
there were 6,693 children, of which 1,631 died in four months. Most of them were
identified with a number on their neck.

[...]

How Many Children were Murdered in Jasenvoac?

Still today it is not possible to give a decisive answer to this question. In order to clarify
thoroughly the tragic fate of thousands of children in the hell of Jasenovac, professional
conferences would be necessary.

But Anton Miletic, the author of the book The Concentration Camp Jasenovac 1941-1945,
which has appeared in three volumes, has contributed much to the answer. It represents a
singular collection of documentary testimonies on more than 2,000 pages and comprises
627 documents and 25 contributions. These volumes, a great and especially exhaustive
accomplishment, have contributed the most to the research of the mass murder at
Jasenovac.

[•]

After Miletic had counted the names of the children who were entered into the
documents he published, he arrived at the number of 7,886 mur-

294 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

dered children in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska. But even this is not the final number. If
one adds the undocumented children from the groups of the 29,000 Jews and 40,000
Gypsies who were liquidated in Jasenovac, the result becomes so terrible that it could rob
a person of his or her mind.

These children were killed by Pavelic and Artukovic's henchmen, and that says everything
about them. We have the reports of those who were not murdered.

(Report of Dragoje Lukic—who as a child himself experienced the horror of Jasenovac—


from 14 and 15 November 1986 at the conference in Jasenovac)

Upravitel}«tvo sabirnog logora

JaMiiovac
/// /

« cMkU^M,^. 7

Salle zatt6enlk: Srupa

Dnc -Wr/i? ,M ~7

Facsimile of the postcard from Ljubinka Nesic, who sent it from the Jasenovac camp to
his parents in October 1944. It contains a medical prescription for medicine that Ljubinka
needed urgently (from a private collection).
Above, One of the entrances to the Jasenovac camp. The sign reads, "Work service of the
Ustasha Defense Assembly Camp Nr. III."

Below, Prisoners in Jasenovac. Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr.


3083.
Two aerial photographs of the Jasenovac camp during the last days of World War II—
Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 3080/Nr. 3083.
Upon entry into the camp, the Ustashe searched every camp prisoner and confiscated the
rings, bracelets, money, and other valuables— Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav
Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

The Ustashe force a camp prisoner to give away his ring upon entry into the Jasenovac
camp— Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

298 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC


Above, Prisoners of Jasenovac camp on their way to forced labor. As Dr. Nikola Nikolic
cited, the heavy physical work was one of the methods of killing people in the Jasenovac
camp.

Below, Camp prisoners from Jasenovac constructing a dam. The Ustasha propaganda
published this photograph with the claim that the camp prisoners were being "retrained"
by the "work." Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 3083.
Above, The Ustasha monk Rendic, one ol the directors ot the Jasenovac camp—Yugoslav
Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

Below, The Franciscan monk Filipovic, known as "Brother Satan," became the camp
commandant in Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska and received a high Ustasha rank.
302 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC
Gold watches taken from Serb and Jewish victims and hidden in the residence of the
archbishop of Zagreb, where they were found after the retreat of the Ustashe.
PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC
1941: Children in the Stara Gradiska concentration camp, dying of slow starvation. The
government of the satellite state of Croatia (Interior Minister Andrija Artukovic) ordered
caustic soda to be added to their food in order to eliminate them.
306 PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC
Above, Before the inspection by the International Red Cross, the Croatian government
(Artukovic) ordered the burning of people alive in Jasenovac. Charred bodies were thrown
into the courtyard in Jasenovac in order to make room for more people who were to be
burned in specially built

ovens.

Below, Serb children after their rescue from the Ustasha camp.
The troops of General von Stahl from the "West Bosnia" group hang the people of
Potkozarje. In the staff of General von Stahl was Lieutenant Kurt Waldheim, charged with
the work of the secret service—Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 3209.

At the end of April 1945, the Germans and the Ustashe abandoned Jasenovac, after they
first had killed all the remaining camp prisoners. In the picture is the body of a massacred
camp prisoner which the Save had washed up.— Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik —Yugoslav
Cinemathek Nr. 3083.
Before they left Stara Gradiska, Jasenovac, and Sisak, the Ustashe killed all the remaining
camp prisoners, as one of the mass graves in the picture shows—private collection.
PART III: THE DEATH CAMP JASENOVAC

PART FOUR

THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Reports about the Intimate Conversations with the Pope and His Closest Collaborators

On 17 January 1940, Archbishop Stepinac made the following entry in his diary (Volume
III, p. 413):

For no other reason than the interest of the Catholic Church, we must undertake
everything so that the Croatian people will continue to be strong in health and culture.
These qualities, which they have preserved in the last twenty years, will also serve them
in the future in the struggle to survive. It would be best if the Serbs would return to the
faith of their fathers, i.e., if they would bow before Christ's representative—the Holy
Father. Then we could finally breathe easily even in this part of Europe, in whose history
Byzantinism and the Turks have played a terrible role.

(Archives of the Office of the Interior [SUPS] of the Socialist Republic of Croatia)

The attitude of the NDH in regard to the Orthodox Serbs was manifested already in April
1941 after the occupation in several drastic measures, such as, for example, the banning of
Cyrillic script by an order of the Interior Ministry on 25 April 1941, as well as in the order
that the Orthodox had to wear a blue band with the letter "P" (i.e., Orthodox) on their
sleeve, etc. Almost all employees who were of the Orthodox faith were fired, and a large
wave of arrests began. At first, Orthodox priests were arrested, who very often were
subjected to sadistic horrors. In the villages, the massa-

313

314 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

cres of the Orthodox population began, which often took place in Orthodox churches.
Some churches were blown up with dynamite, others burned, and the others plundered.
In an agreement with the German occupational forces in Serbia, great parts of the
Orthodox population were driven into Serbian territory. In the camps, there were not only
Jews but especially Serbs. Already in the first months of the occupation, the Orthodox
Serbs there were slaughtered in masses.

In order to be able to carry out the extermination of the Serbs systematically, a special
"Department of Religion" was established in the "State Direction for Renewal"; its task
was to destroy Orthodox communities and houses of religion as well as to convert the
Serbs who had remained in Croatia. At the head of this office was the Priest Dionizije Ju-
ricev. He was an Ustasha officer and a close colleague and confidant of Pavelic. Later he
was his house chaplain and the tutor of his children. The task of this special department
of religion is obvious from the decree that it issued on 7 July 1941 to the county
authorities:

In the spirit of the instructions found in the memo from the Direction P.T.K. Nr. 26/41 on
2 July 1941, all the people in the list are to be arrested along with their next of kin (wives,
children, and all members of the family that live in the same household). They are to be
brought under armed guard to an assembly site and from there transported to the camp in
Sisak.

This decree, which was "top secret, urgent, and nonpostponable" and in which it was
emphasized that these were concerns of a "matter of great state interest," was in reference
to the arrest and internment of all Orthodox priests of Ilok county.

In this office arose the plans for compulsory conversion; here directives were formulated
that the Catholic Church hierarchy converted into fact through their lower departments,
and all this happened on a legal basis:

Already on 3 May 1941, Pavelic issued a "legal decree for a change in religion," with which
all previously legal measures were declared void. The minister of religion and education
Dr. Mile Budak sent this decree to all bishop's ordinariates.

At the same time, the chancery of the archbishop's see in Zagreb issued special decrees
directed via the responsible bishop's ordinariates in the NDH to the entire priesthood of
all bishoprics and published in their organ Katolicki list on 15 May 1941 (under Nr. 4104).
The decrees of the archbishopric in Zagreb were summarized in seven points and
indicated who could become a member of the Catholic Church and who could not.

All this made clear that the most highly respected members of the Catholic Church in the
NDH were supportive of the Ustasha's plans. By means of terrorist methods, the
Orthodoxy in Croatia was to be liquidated, and all Serbs who were not killed or driven
from the land were forced into the Catholic faith in a very short time and thereby
automatically made "Croats."

[...]

What the highest Catholic authority in Croatia understood by this conversion and the
intent with which it supported it, is seen the most clearly in the articles that appeared in
Katolicki list, the organ of the Zagreb archbishopric. These are articles designed to incite
violence against the Serbs and Orthodoxy.

[...]

There are two texts from the Pavelic ministries that prove the intentions and the means
of force with which these compulsory conversions were carried out.

On 30 June 1941, the Ustasha regime published a document under the number 48468/41,
which deals with the question of transfer from Orthodox faith to Catholicism. It states
among other things that the transfer from Orthodox to Greek-Catholic faith (which is
closer to Orthodoxy) is undesirable and that one should insist that the Orthodox transfer
only to the Roman Catholic faith. The people to be rebaptized must show official
certificates that confirm their "personal integrity." These certificates were issued "in
consent with the Ustasha camps and the field camps." In addition to that, the Justice
Ministry and the Ministry for Religious Matters had to be informed. Furthermore, it was
stated that certificates would be issued "to Orthodox priests, merchants, rich tradesmen,
farmers, and intellectuals" only by exception.

The authorities thus determined in advance which persons could convert to the Catholic
faith and which were to be deported or liquidated. The decisive criteria were the
possessions of the people in concern; especially rich people were to be liquidated or
deported, so that their possessions could be confiscated. In addition, the intellectuals
were to be murdered.

A second document was directed by the Justice Ministry on 14 July 1941 (Nr. 42687-B.
1941) to the bishop's ordinariates of the NDH:

We ask the reverend ordinariate in confidence to instruct all parishes regarding the
acceptance of Orthodox people into the Catholic Church. In

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

no instance may the Orthodox people be allowed to assume Greek-Catholic faith. It is the
intention of the Croatian government to prevent Orthodox clergy, teachers, and other
intellectuals, as well as the wealthy layer of merchants, craftsmen, and farmers, to be
taken into the Catholic Church. ... In regard to this circle of people, decrees will possibly
be issued at a later date; also, we must prevent difficulties from arising for the Catholic
faith and the respect of the Catholic Church. The lower and poorer level of the Orthodox
population may be accepted after previous instruction about Catholic tenets. If the above-
mentioned people should insist on being accepted, they are to be rejected deftly or
removed in other ways.

The tone of this text makes clear the close cooperation between the episcopate and the
Ustasha regime. There was a strictly confidential discussion of how the Orthodoxy was to
be liquidated, and the Ustasha regime determined the guidelines for the conversion,
which the episcopate observed. Herewith, the execution of further massacres and all
measures for the brutal liquidation of the Serbs in Croatia was to be made easier for the
Us-tashe. The episcopate was asked to accept no persons belonging to the named
population circles and trying to become Catholics out of sheer fear of death. For these,
there were other measures planned: they were to be liquidated!

The fact that the conversion was carried out under the greatest terror and that the
Catholic episcopate exploited this terror to increase the number of faithful is evident from
a memo from the bishop's press in Dakovo. In it, the Orthodox are admonished "to report
as soon as possible to the Catholic Church," since they allegedly could "remain in their
homes" and "unimpeded" could dedicate themselves to the education of their children,
"as soon as they would become Catholics."

This appeal caused fear among the Orthodox, because it aroused the suspicion of what
would await them if they did not convert to the Catholic faith.

We already mentioned the State Direction for Renewal, in which there was a special
department of religious matters. In the sphere of influence of this department were all
matters relating to the questions of conversion from "Greek-Eastern" faith to Catholic,
Lutheran, or Islamic faith. Here plans were laid that were given the authority of law by
the government ministries.

Up until November 1941, the priest and Ustasha captain Dionizije Juricev was at the head
of this department. He was the sole and highest leader of the conversion effort and stood
"in close relationship with the spiritual authorities." His office sent "missionaries" into
foreign service, who were to agitate for conversion to the Catholic faith. These were
priests who were charged with preparing the highest possible number of Serbs

for the new faith. Their tactics were clear from the office's exchange of letters and memos.
Thus the Department of Religion of the Direction for Renewal of the community offices
in Staza issued the following:

We therefore wish to inform you that the entire action of the instruction and conversion
(two missionaries) must be ended by next Sunday, so that the entire community can
convert to the Catholic faith on this day. . . . This takes place with the agreement of Mr.
Kotarski, who also desires that everything be ended before the big celebration on 11
October 1941.

From a letter to the community commission in Crkveni Bok of 22 October 1941, one can
see the directive of the Department of Religion that says that the Orthodox congregation
"is to be reorganized immediately into a Roman Catholic congregation according to the
plan." This directive is in the same letter in which it is also announced that a missionary
is being sent in preparation for the conversion. That is, everything was planned in
advance and in the greatest haste, and one was thoroughly expecting to be able to convert
every inhabitant of the town. This expectation does not seem to be unjustified when you
know the kind of sermons the missionaries gave the Orthodox.

Dionizije Juricev himself worked in the foreign service and organized mass conversions
in various towns. In Staza he gave the already quoted speech:

In this country, only Croats may live from now on, because it is a Croatian country. We
know precisely what we will do with the people who do not convert. I have purged the
whole surrounding area, from babies to seniors. If it is necessary, I will do that here, too,
because today it is not a sin to kill even a seven-year-old child, if it is standing in the way
of our Ustasha movement.

Today we must all be Croats. We must extend our land, and if we are big and strong
enough, we will also take land from others if necessary. Do not believe that I could not
take a machine gun in hand just because I wear priests vestments. If it is necessary, I will
eradicate everyone who is against the Ustasha state and its rule—right down to babies!

Thus did many Ustasha priests talk and act who were carrying out mass murders and
compulsory conversions at the order of the Ustasha government and with no protest from
the highest ecclesiastical courts—and lived up to this task quite fanatically.
The archbishopric see in Zagreb already right at the beginning, on 15 May 1941, issued the
first decrees that were to ease the execution of the Ustasha plan. It has furthermore been
proven that one of the highest

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Ustasha corporations, the Ministry of Religion, was in touch with the bishopric
ordinariuses and issued directives on how and under what conditions and goals the
compulsory conversion was to be carried out. And how did the Vatican react?

The pope and the entire curia knew very well what was going on in the so-called NDH
with the Orthodox Serbs. They knew about the great conversion actions, supported the
Ustasha, and allowed the Croatian Episcopate to cooperate.

There are many examples of proof.

On 17 July 1941 (Prot. N. 2116), the Holy Vatican Congregation for the Eastern Church
gave instructions to the Zagreb administrator of the bishops conference, Dr. Stepinac,
regarding the conversion of the Orthodox:

The Holy Congregation for the Eastern Church directs the attention of His Excellency to
the fact that the Roman Catholic priests in Croatia are to be encouraged by their revered
bishops to make it possible for non-members (recreants) to return naturally to the
eastern Catholic liturgy, whenever it is a matter of former members of the Catholic
community of the Eastern Church who left the Catholic faith because of threats and
pressures on the part of the Orthodox.

When His Excellency makes this necessity known to His worthy bishops in Croatia, He
will earn new honors by this contribution to the furthering of Catholicism. For there are
great hopes for the conversion of the recreants. I would like to take the opportunity to
express to His Excellency my respect and remain

Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, Secretary

Ant. Arata, Archbishop Sard a, Assessor

In this hypocritical document, he is saying that only those people may be accepted into
the Catholic faith who allegedly had been members of the Catholic Church but had
strayed from the Catholic faith in the past under outside pressure and threats. That, by
the way, is also how the Ustasha formulated it. The Catholic bishops stuck to this edict
and preached that in the past in Croatia there were no Orthodox people and that those
there today were just invaders or were Catholics whom these had converted by force.

In the above-cited resolution, it speaks only of the conversion to the Greek-Catholic


liturgy and not yet to Roman-Catholic liturgy. But soon the Vatican also approved this in a
second resolution.

In the resolution directed at Pavelic, which was delivered at the bishops' conference in
Zagreb on 17 November 1941, the mentioned note of the Holy Congregation was quoted
word for word with the notation:

The Croatian Catholic episcopate completely agrees with the decree of the Holy
Congregation for the Eastern Church of 17 July 1941.

Subsequent to the repeating of this decree, it says in the resolution:

Likewise, the Croatian Catholic Episcopate accepts the decree of the Holy Apostolic See of
18 October 1941, which says:

"Where there are already organized Greek Catholic parishes, the non-members who wish
to convert are to be directed to these parishes. In case, however, that the segregated non-
members do not wish to maintain their Eastern liturgy or cannot, they are to be given the
freedom to accept the Latin liturgy."

In the quoted resolution, the Croatian episcopate further maintains that it "agrees . . .
with these two decrees all the more since they basically agree with the decrees of the
memo from the government of the NDH of 30 July Nr. 46448-41."

The cynicism is unmistakable: there is talk of a "freedom to accept" the Latin liturgy, as if
the Vatican had not been aware of how and why the Orthodox were converting in masses
to Catholicism!

In order to better illuminate the role of the Croatian episcopate, it is worth quoting parts
of the resolution with which the episcopate addresses Pavelic and demands jurisdiction of
the conversion of the Serbs exclusively for itself. The bishops with this action did not
wish to be subject to the state Direction for Renewal any longer. Their letter to Pavelic is
as follows:

Our Poglavnik!

The Croatian Catholic Episcopate, gathered for the plenary conferences of 17 and 18
November of this year (1941) came to the following conclusions about the conversion of
the Greek-Eastern people to the Catholic faith:

1. It considers it as a dogmatic principle that the dissolution of all questions concerning


the crossover of the Greek-Eastern people to the Catholic faith fall exclusively in the
jurisdiction of the Catholic Church hierarchy, which alone according to divine right and
according to canonical decrees is empowered to issue directives for this crossover. Every
action circumventing the Church's authority must be strictly excluded.
2. Therefore, no one but the Catholic Church hierarchy has the right to establish
missionaries to carry out the conversion of the Greek-Easterners to the Catholic faith.
Every such missionary must receive the assignment and the legal power for his spiritual
work from his local ordinariate. Consequently, it is antidogmatic and anticanonic for the
missionaries to receive their assignment from community authorities or from
administrators, from

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Ustasha functionaries, from the Department of Religion of the state Direction for
Renewal, or from any other secular office instead of from their ordinariate bishops.

3. Any missionary may be dependent on only the local ordinarius in his spiritual work,
directly or indirectly via the local pastor.

4. The Catholic Church can recognize only such conversions that have been or will be
carried out according to these dogmatic principles.

5. The secular authorities cannot declare conversions invalid that have been carried out
ecclesiastically, and that complying not only with Church but also with civil law.

6. The Croatian Catholic Episcopate therefore is selecting a committee of three persons


from its midst consisting of: the head of the bishops conference, Bishop from Senj,
Monsignore Dr. Viktor Buric and the Apostolic Administrator of the Bishopric of
Krizevcci, Dr. Janko Simrak. This committee is to solve and debate all problems regarding
the conversion of the Greek-Easterners. Regarding the decrees concerning the
conversions, the committee shall cooperate with the Minister of Justice and Religion.

7. The Croatian Catholic Episcopate selected as a committee to carry out the work of the
problem of conversion of the Greek-Easterners to the Catholic faith the following
persons: Dr. Franjo Herman, Professor in the Theology Department in Zagreb; Dr.
Augustin Juretic, advisor of the bishops conferences; Dr. Janko Kalaj, instructor of
religion at the middle schools and teacher of Glagolica [Old Slavic script, translator's
note] in the Theology Department; Nikola Boric, Chancery Director of the Zagreb
Archbishopric; and Dr. Krunoslav Dragutinovic, Professor in the Theology Department.
Under the supervision of the Committee of Bishops for Conversion, this committee will
solve all matters concerning the problem of conversion of the Greek-Easterners to the
Catholic faith.

[•]

On the subject of the terrorizing of the Serbs itself, this resolution hypocritically says the
following:

Our Poglavnik!
This decision of the Croatian episcopate was directed with great love and concern for the
Croatian people, for the independent State of Croatia, and for the Catholic faith, which is
the faith of the vast majority of the Croatian people.

At this point, we must speak of errors that have prevented the conversion of the Greek-
Easterners to take place to its full extent and with the success that could have happened if
these errors had not been made. We

do not lay the blame on the government of the Independent State of Croatia. We also do
not wish to depict these errors as a system, but as actions of nonresponsible individuals
who were not aware of their great responsibility and the results. We know that these
actions are reactions to the policy of the past twenty years, to the crimes of the Cetniks,
and of the communists, who have committed so many bloodthirsty horrors against our
peaceful Croatian people. We thank God, the Almighty, that by your intervention, oh
Poglavnik, the conditions slowly are being regulated.

Therefore, the Croatian Catholic Episcopate presents to you the following not for the sake
of incrimination but so that in the future all actions of nonresponsible elements will be
thwarted completely. From the following, it can be seen why the conversion has not
succeeded and what one should do so that this work may be directed without vain efforts
onto the track of thought-out endeavors.

The Croatian episcopate explains the crimes committed in the compulsory conversion as
errors made by some sort of nonresponsible individuals and even justifies these errors
with alleged provocations on the part of the victims! The Ustasha government is in no
way to blame! The Church leadership does not judge the crimes. It only regrets that these
"errors" have reduced the results of the mass conversions.

[• • ]

The Vatican had enough other possibilities to learn of the horrors.

The legate of the Vatican in Zagreb, Marcone, who had insights into everything, often
traveled to Rome and there gave his reports. It can be considered sure, according to the
present information, that he—as well as various other Croatian bishops—represented the
views and interests of the Ustasha in the Vatican. The Vatican not only did not lift a finger
to improve matters, but it to the contrary showed in all its actions that it was concerned
with the pacification of the Ustasha and with the furthering of Catholicism in the
Croatian part of the Balkan.

In this sense, the Vatican also issued more decisive and more far-reaching directives than
are included in the quoted resolution of the Congregation of the Eastern Church. Pater
Radoslav Glavas, administrator of the Department of Religion of the Ustasha Ministry of
Justice and Religion, spoke thereof in his testimony before the commission after the
liberation of Zagreb. Glavas was not only a priest but also a high Ustasha functionary, for
which reason this important department was entrusted to him in the ministry. He was the
connecting link between the Ustasha government and the episcopate. The entire Church
policy in Croatia was in his hands. In his testimony, however, he rejected the
responsibility for the mass con-

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

version and maintained that this was a matter that was carried out according to directives
from the Vatican exclusively by the Direction for Renewal—in cooperation with the
episcopate, of course. In the report given by Glavas in his own handwriting it says:

As I already reported, the people converted to Catholicism out of fear of a massacre. Some
were thus able to save their heads and later returned to their former faith. Others died in
spite of or precisely because of the conversion. . . .

"Renewal" did all the work itself: the technical preparations as well as the execution and
the final conversion of the Orthodox people. In my opinion, matters happened as follows:

In some areas, the Ustasha units operated in the most bloody manner. This evoked a
panic fear among the Orthodox, and they reported for conversion. "Renewal" immediately
sent pastors to these towns and made the town pastor carry out the conversion as far as
possible, which also happened. Special attention was given to the children, but also to
adults. I know that Juricev gathered a group of young women from Slavonia—most
already converted—, took them to Zagreb, and kept them in Sljeme in order to educate
them in the Ustasha spirit, which they were to convey to the town inhabitants. I do not
know what success this had; I only remember that some were killed as soon as they
returned to their villages.

In order to intensify the conversion, a deputation of converters was received by the


poglavnik and was admonished by him himself with penetrating words about their
Croatian origin. I remember having read that in the newspaper.

Of course the bishops knew of these conversions and approved them. Simrak, the bishop
of Krizevci, tried with all his power to convert as many Orthodox as possible. He accepted
them without any order and method. With some bishops, suspicion may have been
aroused that these conversions could be invalid and inadmissible, because they happened
out of fear. They presented this question to the papal legate Marcone, for him to inquire
in Rome.

As far as I remember, the answer came from Rome that conversion caused by fear of
armed violence was allowed. I know this from the stories from Juricev. I myself never
saw the document. . . . Now the mass conversions began, in which Dr. Simrak was
especially prominent, about whom Juricev and Medic lodged complaints with me because
he formerly was accepting Orthodox people without any regulation.

I believe that Juricev and Medic had that letter or those instructions from the Vatican. . . .
Now that they and the bishops were covered by the Vatican's instructions, the conversion
work progressed at a hastening speed and was not stopped or stemmed until 1942, when
the partisan movement strengthened. I presume that Rome again sent a prescription
regarding the Orthodox churches in which religious services were to be held—this, too,

was the object of discussion—because suddenly they began to use Orthodox churches;
they removed from them only the Orthodox altars and blessed them then. This
prescription was presumably in the same letter from Rome that was already mentioned
above. . . .

As I already said, it would be of the greatest urgency to find the letters from Rome
concerning the religious conversions. I am sure that they exist. At least I have heard
about them and about the fact that the bishops issued instructions to the priesthood
regarding the conversions and that they quite surely followed the prescriptions from
Rome. That was especially true for Simrak, who had good relationships with the legate
Marcone and presumably had the authority from him to confiscate the property of the
Orthodox such as the cloister Lepavina near Krizevci, for example, which he took over
right from the "Renewal." As you can see, the connection between the "Renewal" and the
Catholic bishops is proven by this. The guidelines came from the Vatican through the
papal legate.

Judging from the testimony by Glavas, who was initiated much more thoroughly in the
matters than one can conclude from these words, then there existed a precise directive
from the Vatican concerning the conversions and not just that decision by the
Congregation for the Eastern Church and its later expansion. It is also quite improbable
that the whole Croatian episcopate took part in this criminal action so cold-bloodedly and
without scruples without the existence of a concrete directive from the Vatican and
without the legate Marcone having de facto authority.

In the reports of the Ustasha deputies in the Vatican, Rusinovic and Lob-kowicz, to the
foreign ministry in Zagreb, there are many statements that illuminate the true position of
the Vatican regarding the compulsory conversions.

Rusinovic reports to Lorkovic on 26 February 1942 about his visit with Cardinal Maglione,
the Vatican state secretary. He says there was mention of news that was published in a
Turkish paper, La Republique, about the massacre of the Serbs in Croatia and about a
protest allegedly directed at the Vatican by Serb-Orthodox patriarchs. Maglione had
denied that such a protest had been lodged in the Vatican. Then Rusinovic had presented
to Maglione the development of the situation in Croatia as follows:

I described the situation to him approximately as follows: The state of Croatia was formed
on 10 April. The war of the axis powers against the former Yugoslavia lasted exactly one
week. The whole Croatian population, however, arose to shake off the Serbian yoke. In a
short time, the Serb army was defeated, but as a result of modern war tactics and the
strategic conditions,

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

the Serbs were driven from all sides toward the center. Therefore, they had chosen
Bosnia, a mountainous, hardly accessible area unsuitable for operations on a grand scale,
as their retreat area. And thus a great part of the Serb army remained in Bosnia, well
equipped with modern weapons and all the necessities for waging war—and especially for
guerilla war, the only type of war possible in this area.

So there were the Cetniks from Bosnia and the Serbs from Serbia. The former are known
from the history of the Serbian people as criminals who massacred their kings in the most
brutal manner—To portray them in a clearer light, I also spoke of the sad murder of
Alexander, the last king from the Obrenovic line, in the year 1901.—These criminals
wanted to give Croatia the death blow while it was not yet in a position to gather its army.
They began to burn the villages and slaughter old men, women, and innocent children.
Plunderings were common with them. These attacks also cost the lives of many Catholic
priests—I mentioned the case of the pastor whom the Cetniks first robbed then burned in
the parsonage.

The people defended themselves as well as they could. Surely they also conducted
retaliation measures of the most crude kind. When the Croatian government sent their
troops, it was, however, intent upon honoring the law and punishing all guilty persons for
the transgressions; and they succeeded in this.

Enemy propaganda—I added—speaks of terrible deeds that actually have been committed
by the Cetniks against the Croatian population and represents them as deeds by the
Croats against the Serbs. We reject this and we can prove the truth, although we could not
find the time to collect all details about the crimes of the Cetniks against our people.
While the Cetniks were still raging, the war between Germany and the Soviet Union broke
out. Then the communists also rose and joined the Cetniks. We can only thank
providence, the wise policy of the poglavnik, and the unanimity of the Croatian people
that we succeeded in conquering all difficulties and to save the thing that the Croatian
people have longed for for centuries and for which it rendered bloody offerings: its own
state. Every Croat will defend it to the fullest extent.

In such a deceitful and audacious manner, the Ustasha deputy portrayed the massacre of
the Serbs to the man who is second only to the pope in the Vatican. Cardinal Maglione
must have known how very much Rusinovic was lying and contorting the facts. But he
liked this interpretation and he was very much satisfied. Rusinovic adds:
He listened attentively to my portrayal and expressed his satisfaction. He said he had not
yet had the opportunity to hear such a portrayal, only the enemy propaganda.

So Maglione was well informed in advance about the Ustasha crimes, but, as we see called
this precise news "propaganda." This "propaganda" could not please him, since it was a
black spot against his beloved NDH. And therefore he expressed his satisfaction when
Rusinovic depicted the blood letting of the Ustasha as a deed of "wild" Serbs and
communists.

Rusinovic writes the following about the conversion of the Orthodox masses to the
Catholic faith:

We came to speak of the question of the converted people, about which the enemy
propaganda maintained that they relinquished their faith only under heavy pressure from
the government and switched over to the Catholic faith to save their lives. It seemed that
this interested him most of all. I immediately emphasized that this was not actually a
matter of conversions but of return, because up to the arrival of the Turks, there were no
Orthodox people in Croatia. How great the pressure was on the Croatian part of the
population was best retrieved from historical documents, which showed that the Turks
eased the Serbs' infiltration into Croatia and to both of them, any means was justified to
persuade the Croats away from their faith and therewith to weaken their national
strength.

I further mentioned that in the past twenty years 250,000 people had left the Catholic
Church. In regard to the returnees, I emphasized that the Croatian government was
leaving them to the Church and that the Church was completely free to act in the matter.
His Eminence Stepinac had confirmed this with me before my departure for Rome as he
said that he could have converted up to 400,000 Orthodox but had converted only
100,000, because he did not want to accept them without thorough preparation. The
Orthodox element, he said, was so retarded that they did not even know the basic
principles of the holy faith.

Then Rusinovic reported to Cardinal Maglione how "eminently Catholic" the Ustasha
regime was and that Pavelic as a God-fearing man and "practicing Catholic" had a small
chapel in his compound. Cardinal Maglione accepted all that with the words:

I am very grateful to you for these pleasant statements and ask you to visit me again
when you have more pleasant things to tell me.

Historical falsifications were spread, such as how the Turks brought the Serbs to Croatia
and together with them "forced" the Croats to become Orthodox, such as how 250,00
Croats allegedly were rebaptized by force at the time of Yugoslavia, etc. It is clear that the
first papal representative —and accordingly the pope himself—saw the mass conversions
by the Ustasha with satisfaction: You cannot explain any other way the fact that
PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Maglione did not criticize with a single word the brutality of the Ustashe in the attacks on
the Serbs, that he did not express the slightest aversion nor the least scruples regarding
the violent, inhuman mass conversions. This satisfaction is a further proof that the
directives for the compulsory conversions indeed came from the Vatican. For the curia, an
old goal was becoming reality here: to liquidate the Orthodox Church at least in a part of
the Balkan, the west, and to extend Catholicism up to the Drina. Ustashadom and the
occupiers created the conditions for the realization of this plan. In a letter of February
1942 to Lorkovic, Rusinovic writes:

On Saturday, I visited Monsignore Sigesmondi [actually Sigismondi, author's note], who


is the chief of the office for Croatia in the Vatican. He was extraordinarily kind and
cordial. He was interested in the conditions in Croatia and told me that enemy
propaganda against us was rather active. In the conversation, we came to speak about the
question of the conversions in Croatia. He said the Holy See was pleased about this. The
American and English press, however, was attacking us, he said, because all these
conversions were being carried out under great pressure on the part of the government.
The Holy See did not believe this, he said, but it is advisable to carry out the conversions
with less attention in order to avoid objections and wrongful accusations as well as
unpleasantness for the Holy See.

He mentioned that sometimes even in the Italian press there was news about the mass
conversions of the Orthodox to Catholicism. I explained to him the process in appropriate
words and based it on the fact that all the converted people had already once been
Catholics, but had given up their faith under the worst violence and must be recreant. I
told him that I would work out the historical depiction of this matter under the guidance
of documents in the form of a memorandum, which he accepted happily. He
recommended delivering it to Cardinal Maglione when I met with him.

This document is very important. Sigismondi was the chief of the Vatican's Office for
Croatia and was responsible in the Vatican for all matters concerning the NDH. He spoke
quite matter-of-factly about the fact that the "Holy See was pleased about this." He, too, is
well informed about the true character of these mass conversions, i.e., about the acts of
violence, and was pursuing critical American and English reports. And he, too, like the
Ustasha, depicts these reports as "enemy propaganda." He does not criticize the Ustasha
methods, but only recommends not provoking the "enemies" in the world too much and
to carry out the matter "with less attention." As far as terrorizing the "converted ones"is
concerned, Sigismondi says that "the Holy See does not believe this"! And he listens in
satisfaction as the Ustasha deputy interprets the matter "in appropriate words" and
suggests working out a text to be delivered to Cardinal Maglione. The

Ustasha's propaganda lies are thus to be formulated in such a way as to make the Holy
See irreproachable in the question of the mass conversion of the Serbs.
By the way, Cardinal Maglione in the conversation with Rusinovic also said that the Holy
See was pleased about the mass conversions:

In the end, he said to me, . . . concerning the conversions, the Holy See was pleased about
them. Croatia could of course exploit this politically, but one should avoid anything that
could give the enemy cause to make wrongful accusations.

(Letter from Rusinovic to Lorkovic on 26 February 1942)

Cardinal Maglione himself thus points out that the Ustasha criminals were to have the
opportunity to exploit the mass conversions politically to their own advantage as well as
to the Vatican's advantage, since the partnership was useful to both sides. It just had to be
worked out with caution. Therefore, Maglione advises avoiding anything that "could give
the enemy cause to make wrongful accusations."

Even Maglione thus sees as enemies all those who brand the Ustashe because of their
crimes against the Serbs and depicts the protests and complaints as "wrongful
accusations"! All this is further proof of the close cooperation of the Vatican in the mass
conversions and of expressed Vatican directives (of which even the above-quoted Pater
Glavas speaks).

From Rusinovic's report to Lorkovic on 9 May 1942, we see how Stepinac acted as go-
between between the Vatican and the Ustasha and how he intervened for their interests
with the Vatican. Rusinovic writes that Stepinac was in Rome for twelve days, enjoyed
great respect there, "and fought like a lion against all possible enemies of our state."
About the work of Stepinac in Rome, Rusinovic writes the following:

He delivered to the Holy Father a report of nine typed pages. For the most part, he had
shown it to me in advance, and I can assure you that he is absolutely positive from our
viewpoint.

He had found material, of which I knew nothing, supposedly portraying the Cetniks and
the communists as the originators of all evil taking place in Croatia. I will not list the
various crimes that he cites, but you should know that it is an extremely valuable
contribution for my own work on this theme. He judges the situation in the country as
favorable and praises the work and the efforts of the government. He speaks in the most
agreeable terms about the efforts and the concern of the poglavnik to reestablish order as
soon as possible and about his religious orientation and his association with the Church.
He says that in regard to the fate of the Croatian people and his state he is more confident
than ever, because the leadership

328 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

and the people have shown the willingness and the mood to preserve what we have
achieved. He is disturbed by certain shortcomings of certain people, but he said he has
convinced himself that those are really shortcomings of individuals and that the
leadership has nothing to do with it but is trying to prevent the ills that they cause. One
cannot and dare not allow anyone to attack the NDH and sully the Croatian people with
filth.

Therefore, he went to Rome to fight the lies that have come to the desk of the Holy See.
After he had made his report, he was received by the Holy Father and conversed with him
for an hour. Thereafter he visited Maglione and several other cardinals and Vatican
dignitaries. He discussed several questions—especially the ones concerning the Orthodox
people. He will inform the poglavnik about everything, and we talked of him also meeting
with you. I recommended this heartily and advise you of this, because it is good that he
hear a word from our side and not just from those who are in favor of everything except
our matters. I was very friendly and accommodatiag so that he would be in a good mood. I
put a car at his disposal and prepared a dinner for him yesterday evening in my new
home. He came accompanied by several of our priests and the former nuncio Felici and
Monsignore Prettner-Cippico from the state secretariat. The evening progressed in
extraordinarily good mood. I saluted him whereupon he made a nice toast. Saric reported
his visit, which is awaited soon. In any case, Dr. Draganovic should come with him.

Upon his visit in Rome, Stepinac—as one can see from this letter-worked completely in
the spirit of the Ustasha regime. As Rusinovic— who had insight into the nine-page, typed
report by Stepinac—testifies, everything that he presented personally to the Holy See and
to the pope in the course of a one-hour audience completely followed the Ustasha line.
From the viewpoint of the Ustashe, everything was "absolutely positive." Stepinac
portrays Pavelic's terror as an effort "to reestablish order as soon as possible." He portrays
the poglavnik himself as a God-fearing man serving the Church. Stepinac was of the
opinion that attacks on the NDH dare not be allowed—"Therefore, he went to Rome to
fight the lies that have come to the desk of the Holy See"!

He also spoke personally with the pope about the Serbs in Croatia. The pope condoned
Stepinac's intention to report personally to Pavelic after his return about the good
impression that Ustashadom had made on the Holy See. There is no doubt that in the
Vatican there was a great inclination toward Ustashadom, which again confirmed
Stepinac's attitude. If Stepinac had encountered in the Vatican a critical or disapproving
attitude toward the Ustashe, he would not have distinguished himself at the banquet with
his "very nice" table conversation, especially not in the company of Felici, the nuncio with
the Yugoslav government (which the Vatican still

recognized formally!) and Monsignore Prettner-Cippico from the Vatican state secretariat.
Stepinac's attitude is explainable only by the fact that in the Vatican at this time the mass
conversions of the Orthodox and the tragedy of the Serbs were seen with approbation and
were condoned, and he therefore had no reason to be hesitant.

The fact that Stepinac always represented the Ustasha ideology in the Vatican—and even
in his conversations with the pope—can also be proved through another source. In the
course of the occupation, he sent to the pope a series of reports and in them always
referred to the question of the mass conversions. In his special report to the pope on 18
May 1943, Stepinac writes the following:

The Turks had brought in many Orthodox people of Wallachian and Serbian blood, whom
they settled ia Croatian territories. In many places in old documents, we find reference to
these immigrants, who fought as Turkish border guards against the Christians. . . .

The Catholics were persecuted in Serbia; in originally purely Catholic areas, schismatic
bishoprics and cloisters were founded. . . . Ultimately Catholicism disappeared in these
lands completely. The destruction of Catholicism in the Balkan was also successfully
continued in the Turkish era, as the poor Croatian Catholic herd found themselves facing
a superior power. The matter ended with the conversion of whole Catholic areas into the
Oriental Schism—of the bishoprics in Trebinje, in Boka Kotorska, in parts of Bosnia, in
Srijem, in Dalmatia, etc.—and thus Serbian Orthodoxy finally came to power, which it still
possesses.

Of the events at the time of Yugoslavia, we surely do not need to report, since the Holy
Father knows this from his own observation. In order to ease his memory, I will mention
only a few details. With the financial support of the state, the Orthodox Church organized
its propaganda for the transfer of Catholics to Orthodoxy within and outside of the
borders. . . . Certain professionals are of the opinion that the Catholic Church thus and
with the practice of mixed marriages has lost about 200,000 members.

No matter what, it is certain that after the state census, the portion of Catholics just in the
ten years from 1921 to 1931 sank from 39.4% to 37.4% and in the next ten years sank
another 3%. This means that the Catholic Church has lost an eighth of its members.

The Orthodox committed more injustice by applying the state budget of Yugoslavia to the
disadvantage of the Catholics: for the construction of Orthodox churches in purely
Catholic areas, for the suppression and banning of the St. Mary Congregation and of the
United Catholic Action, for the support and organization of old-Catholic heresy, for the
poisoning of the youth with anti-Catholic school books, for the spread of pernicious
literature from the Tyrs-Sokol-Federation.

At this point, I would like to mention just one more proof of the attitude

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

of the Serbs and their Church regarding Catholicism: the infamous and destructive
struggle against the concordat that had already been signed by the Holy See and by the
Belgrade parliament in 1935. Through the fanatical fight of the united Grand Serbs, the
Freemasons, the communists, and the Serb hierarchy, the concordat was to perish in
order to prove that the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia could never achieve religious unity
and that united Serbdom would always show hatred and resistance to the Holy See. . . .

The spread of the eastern Schism in the Catholic ranks today is indeed assuming
threatening size. The victory of the Greater-Serbian idea means the destruction of
Catholicism in the northwest Balkan, in the state of Croatia. The cited documents allow
no doubt. Surely such a fateful event would have repercussions far beyond the borders of
Croatia. The waves of offensive Orthodox Byzantinism would strike the borders of Italy
while they are now breaking on the Croatian Bulwark.

With such mendacious arguments and historical falsifications, Stepi-nac advocated to the
pope personally the eradication of the Serbs and of Orthodoxy by the Ustashe; thus he
worked for their mass conversion or liquidation. That was the lie that the pope and the
whole Vatican curia recognized and condoned. Especially significant is Stepinac's
statement that Ustasha Croatia was defending papal Italy from Orthodoxy!

From the Vatican decrees and reactions that are expressed in the diplomatic
correspondence quoted here, as well as from the attitude of the Zagreb archbishop, we
can see that a common goal linked the Vatican and the Ustashe: a border for the Catholic
Church on the Drina as strong as possible! This goal justified everything, even a sea of
blood and tears, hundreds, thousands of victims.

(from Secret Documents about the Relationship between the Vatican and the Ustasha-
NDH, pp. 90-106)

The Role of the Papal Legate Marcone

The papal legate Ramiro Marcone arrived in Zagreb on 3 August 1941. At that time,
Stepinac made the following entry in his diary: "Therewith, the Holy See recognized de
facto the independent State of Croatia. . . Marcone stayed to the end of the Ustasha rule in
Zagreb. He fulfilled his task to the satisfaction of the Vatican and to the enthusiasm of the
Ustasha. He enjoyed all honors and privileges and was considered an important diplomat.
At all parades, he held a place of honor. There are many photographs that prove this. On
some photos, one sees him with a raised hand giving the fascist salute.

His portly figure in the white cowl of the Benedictines immediately caught everyone's eye.
He resembled a fascist general in monk's clothing more than a brother of an order. He
liked to give speeches to the public whose content very well characterize him and his role
at that time.

In a letter to Lorkovic on 5 June 1942, Rusinovic shares something about the motives that
caused the pope to send Marcone to Zagreb. "He did not come to Zagreb because of his
special diplomatic abilities but because he is a Benedictine. With that, the Holy See
wanted to demonstrate that he respected the traditions in Croatia, because it was back
then a Benedictine (the abbot Martin) who was appointed the first papal legate to the
Croatian royal court.

From this it is clear that the pope considered the NDH a continuation of the medieval
Croatian kingdom.

When Pius XII on 14 May 1942 celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his
consecration as bishop, Radio Zagreb broadcast a speech about the relationship of the
pope to Ustasha Croatia. First was mentioned as usual

331

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

the historical connection of Croatia with the pope and the "great love" of all popes for
Croatia and then it was emphasized that the pope had supported the Ustasha NDH from
the first moment:

The Holy Father harbors a fervent love for our homeland Croatia. Already on 12 May of
last year (1941) Pope Pius XII received the poglavnik and the entire delegation of Ustasha
Croatia, which was in Rome at that time. In August of last year, the Holy See sent its
legate, his excellency Abbot Josip Ramiro Marcone, to Croatia. In a letter of
recommendation, the Holy Father expressed himself as follows:

"The Holy Father harbors a special inclination toward noble Catholic Croatia and sends it
his representative to handle the special religious and political needs of the Croatian
people so dear to him, and this especially in a time in which the whole world seems to be
bent under the burden of great need."

In the above-mentioned broadcast from Radio Zagreb, which the Zagreb paper Katolicki
tjednik printed completely on 24 May 1942, it was reported that Marcone brought along
11,000 dollars and that one "can see just in recent times the cordiality which the present
pope feels toward the Croats in his chambers." This then, says the article, is likewise a
great service performed by Marcone, who depicts Croatia in Rome in a way that is its due.
Also it was reported that the pope in 1942 in addition to the already-mentioned Ustasha
delegations received students, youth, members of the Croatian State Opera, and various
prominent representatives of Ustasha Croatia. This all took place upon Marcone's
initiative.

Marcone's tasks were thus apparently of not only a religious nature but also, as is
mentioned in the already-quoted papal letter of recommendation, especially of a political
nature.

The Ustasha press took the twenty-fifth-year anniversary of his appointment as abbot as
an occasion to report with great enthusiasm on the service that the papal legate Marcone
rendered to Ustashadom. Katolicki list (Nr. 22/1943) writes:

Divine providence after several centuries has allowed the Croatian state of Zvonimir to be
revived. Here the Croat is his own man; from the Drau to the sea, lord of his land and of
his herd. Into this revived Croatia has come—as once did Gebizon, abbot of the
Benedictine order—His Excellency, the legate of the Holy See, Dr. Josip Ramiro Marcone.

The Holy See has sent him as its representative, as the transmitter of paternal feelings
from the pope to the Croatian people, and as testimony of Croatian love for the Holy See
as befits a son. In the popes, the Croats

have always had the best friends and helpers, and it is quite natural that the present pope,
too, embraces our people with his paternal love and wishes them well.

It is equally true that the Croats in various difficult periods of tribulation have remained
true to the Catholic Church, and they choose to persevere in this loyalty even today. The
close relationship with the Holy See in the past has brought the Croats help and strength
in the battle against various enemies of the faith and of the homeland, and thus we firmly
hope that divine assistance and the papal blessing will prevail also in the future among
the Croats. In the moment when need was upon the whole world, enemies of the faith
and of national freedom rose against the Croats. But even this burden will pass as all have
passed heretofore, and the Croats will remain firm and strong, because God and the
representative of God on earth— the pope—are with them.

So with the help of the pope the Croatian people were supposed to be captured in the
slavery of the Ustashe and Nazi fascists. He and God himself were to help prevent the
liberation of the Croatian people from the Ustasha terror. This was the reason for the
presence of the papal legate in Zagreb.

How Marcone was thinking and acting, can be seen also from his suggestion to the
episcopate in Croatia that propaganda prayers "for the early end of the war of the crusade"
be said. This meant the victory of Nazi fascism and of Ustashadom over the partisans, the
liberators. In a letter circulated by Bishop Dakovo (Glasnik Nr. 18/1941), in which it is
expressly emphasized that the pope wishes these prayers, one reads:

We take this news from the highly esteemed letter from His Excellency, the legate of the
Holy Father in Zagreb, J. R. Marcone. Our great poglavnik, hero of the Croatian people,
saviour of our freedom in the most difficult times, when we feared our thousand-year
state of Croatia could be wiped from the map along with Yugoslavia, right in the
beginning of his rule, through unbending power, developed a really supernatural wisdom.

The Holy Catholic Church pursues the events with the greatest concern and love for the
soldiers at the front and the fallen ones in the land. Therefore, the Holy Father by his
message unites our souls in this joint prayer action.
In the year 1943, Marcone was in Bosnia. In Sarajevo, he visited the highest
representatives of the Ustasha government. At that time the organ of the local archbishop
Saric published an article in which it brings up the significance of the visit in Bosnia and
Sarajevo and points to Marcone's attitude, who:

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

... is of a very friendly mind and sincerely concerned about the welfare of the Croatian
people [i.e., of the Ustasha, author's note]. This attitude of Marcone is, however, nothing
other than the expression of the thoughts and the feelings of Pius XII, and we have long
known that the popes are the greatest friends of the Croats and of Croatia.

{Katolicki tjednik of 2 May 1943)

On the way to Bosnia and into Hercegovina, Marcone also stopped over in Mostar, where
he visited various religious establishments. There he conferred also with several
functionaries of the Ustasha and of the Italian fascists. This was at the time of the
partisan battles. He was interested in the course of the battle and incited the Ustasha
fascists to action against the people in Bosnia and in Hercegovina. In Katolicki tjednik of
20 May 1943, Marcone's statements about the relationship of the pope to the Ustasha
Croats are printed: It states that he said,

. . . that the Holy Father is pursuing with great love and support the developments and the
progress of this small, but loyally obedient, Croatian people, causing him to be moved
precisely by the desire for the closest possible cooperation and reciprocal support to send
his representative to Croatia in order to thus learn about the life of the people, their cares,
and their needs.

He had an especially long conversation with our political representatives, delivered to


them the heartiest greetings from the Holy Father, and wished to learn from them
everything that was a concern to the Croatian people. He emphasized that the Holy Father
was very much interested in the conditions and the life of the Croats.

It says further in this report that the abbot Marcone also visited Siroki Brijeg in Ljubosko
and Cabljina and there conferred at length "with Croatian statesmen, Catholic priests, and
the population."

All this casts an especially bright light on the relationship of the pope to Ustashadom, on
his attitude regarding the horrors of the Ustasha criminals, who at this time, precisely in
those areas where the abbot Marcone was traveling, were practicing horrifying massacres
on the Orthodox population and on that part of the Croatians who opposed the Ustasha
terror, in which women and children were not spared. And to these murderers, Marcone,
by trade the papal legate, conveyed "the heartiest greetings from the Holy Father." His
visit was like a papal encouragement to continue these bloody mass murders. The papal
legate also probably fortified the monks on Siroki Brijeg, from whose ranks a great
number of slaughterers came. He undoubtedly sent the pope a detailed report on what he
saw in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The pope, however, did not chastise either Marcone nor

the Croatian bishops and those priests who had taken part in the massacres. On the
contrary, he supported them with his moral authority. He sent "hearty greetings" and his
blessing.

For the cordial relationship between the legate Marcone and Ustashadom, there is further
proof. In 1943, Marcone visited the bishopric Dakovo. Here, too, he had an opportunity to
see the terrorist deeds and murders by the Ustashe. And here, too, as earlier in Bosnia and
in Hercegovina, he supported them.

Marcone's attitude was evident in public declarations and in his directives to the Croatian
bishops:

On the occasion of the inauguration of Brother Petar Cule as bishop of Mostar, Marcone
held a speech in which he expressed his admiration for the faith of the Croatian people
and admonished the people to be loyal to the "Holy See which for centuries has supported
them against the eastern barbarism." He expressed the desire that "Croatia might
overcome momentary difficulties and flourish under the leadership of its Pog-lavnik, Dr.
Pavelic." Even the new bishop did not have to be challenged to confess at the banquet that
"during the inauguration, his thoughts in his prayers had been with the poglavnik and the
persecuted Croats."

From all this, it is clear that Marcone had a great part in the crimes in Croatia, Bosnia,
and Hercegovina. The Croatian episcopate and all of the Croatian priesthood oriented
itself to his attitude.

Marcone often traveled to the Vatican to deliver reports personally. Between these visits,
he transmitted reports to the pope in writing.

In a telegram that the Vatican state secretary Maglione sent to Marcone in an extremely
cordial tone, he says about Marcone's report to the pope, which describes the festivities of
the Ustasha on the occasion of the anniversary of the papal coronation in March 1943:

The High Priest is grateful to you for the news from the consoling festivity with which the
happy anniversary of his coronation was celebrated in Zagreb. This news pleases the Holy
See because it sees in Croatia's living devotion a happy future for Croatia.

(Katolicki list)

Marcone also revealed his great sympathies toward Ustashadom by the fact that in 1944
he personally awarded confirmation to the Ustasha Youth organization. When in
November at the Zagreb cemetery Mirogoj for the fallen Ustasha slaughterers a memorial
was being prepared, the abbot Marcone was also present to announce as papal
representative the solidarity of the pope with these Ustashe.

In January 1944, when the Ustasha foreign ministry published the "grey

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

book," an unscrupulous falsification of history with which all the massacres by the
Ustasha were to be attributed to the partisans, Minister Lorkovic, in the absence of the
papal legate Marcone, ceremoniously presented this book to the diplomats of the axis
powers. Upon this occasion, Marcone was sitting in parliament in the diplomatic loge. The
"grey book" was also sent to Rome—without Marcone pointing out with even a single
word the lies contained in it. Since then, the cardinals always referred to this book with
great enthusiasm.

We have here presented only a selection from the multitude of documents about Marcone
and his role. In addition, his name and his deeds are mentioned many times in the letters
that Lorkovic received from Rusinovic and Lobkowicz. From all the documents published
here and especially from the material about the conversion of the Serbs, the conclusion
can be drawn without any doubt that this man, papal deputy in the NDH, was one of the
main figures in the terrible history of Yugoslavia in the Second World War.

(Secret Documents about the Relationship between the Vatican and the Ustasha-NDH,
pp. 75-80)

The Role of the Papal Legate Marcone

337
PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES
Above, Massucci, Marcone, Pavelic.

Below, At a dedication ceremony of the Ustasha headquarters in Zagreb. The cleric Sipe
Nucetic and his deputy greet the honor bearers of the Ustashe in a fascist manner.

The apostolic legate Marcone was in the NDH from 1941 and left Zagreb at the end of
1945. Below we see him at the reception with Pavelic {far left) on the occasion of the
fourth anniversary of the NDH on 10 April 1945, a month before the end of the v/m—
Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik Nr. 163, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. Z 514.

342 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Above, The apostolic legate, Abbot Marcone (in white); at his right Andrije Artukovic,
Interior Minister of the NDH and at his left Alojzije Stepinac—private collection.

Below, The apostolic legate Marcone (in the white robes of the Dominican order),
Archbishop Stepinac (next to him), and around them sit leading military representatives
of Germany and the NDH—private collection.
PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES
Above, Nuns marching with Croation Nazi legionaires (Ustashe). Below, Nuns saluting
with the fascist salute.

Above, Pope Pius XII named Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac the highest military vicar. The
vicars attended to the morale of the troops in all the Ustasha and national army units.
Ante Pavelic receives a group of Franciscan clergy from Bosnia and Hercegovina—
Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

Below, Ante Pavelic with nuns from Duvno and Livno-Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

-Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav

346 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Propaganda for the Ustasha regime in the Croatian Catholic press.

Eyewitness Testimonies about the Compulsory Conversions

The testimony of witness Josip Valentic, farmhand from Sunj, about the activity of the
pastor Josip Orlic in the conversion of Serbs:

About the conversion of Serbs I do not know so much. Before the collapse of Yugoslavia,
organizations were founded by pastor Josip Orlic that had not existed before. These were
the organizations "Catholic Men," "Catholic Women," and "The Crusaders." Those who
did not care to join these organizations were labeled as communists and miscreants.
After the occupation of our country, the leaders of the Crusaders and of the Catholic Men
immediately got a military title and armed themselves. Milan Majevic, for example, got
the title of a major. Ivan Valentic, who at the time of Yugoslavia was leader of the
Crusaders, later became a murderer: On 24 April 1941, they brought all the Serb men from
the surrounding villages into the courtyard of the military camp and there. . . . There were
Orthodox clerics and teachers here, whom they beat terribly. Afterwards they left the
Serbs alone for a while. But a short time later, the Ustasha brought the student Micun to
Sisak and tortured him there for four days; on 2 August 1941 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
he was killed in a bestial manner. When his mother came to bring him food, she was
arrested, and in the evening all Serbs were fetched who lived in Sunj—they were good
people; they lived in harmony with us and even voted for the Croatian Farmers Party
(HSS) and the Serbian Voluntary Corps (SDK). All the men and three women were
brought. Bound with wire, they were led in two directions to the Save. Twenty of them
were killed and tossed into the Save.

On Seliste, the same thing happened. The murdering lasted eight days,

348

to the 8th of August 1941. At this time, about 350 people were killed and buried on
Mrtviste. On 2 August 1941, a bloody company—as they called themselves—came under
the command of Rudolf Blazevic. They killed, as it was said, several thousand Serbs. And
when they encountered two transports at the train station in Kostajnica headed for
Germany, they opened them up, plundered them, and shot all the prisoners.

On 9 August 1941, I went to the pastor and told him we should send a deputation to
Paveli6 to see what was going on. For these were all upright and innocent people. He
turned that down and said: "I won't go now, perhaps later." Later he actually went, but
with the Ustasha lieutenant Stjepan Stje-panovic. Dionizije Juricev came and took up
quarters in the parsonage. The conversions were prepared. A woman from Sunj with the
name of Desanka Pavlovic came to him and asked him to rebaptize her. He promised her
this, but when she told him that she was not married and had three children, he replied:
"Such people will not be rebaptized, but it makes no difference whether you are baptized
or not, because no more of you will survive than drops in a sieve."

Then the conversions were carried out and up until January 1943 the Serbs were finally
left alone. On 15 January, Dionizije came and prepared an action on Svinjica. Together
with the Ustashe, he drove the Serbs together in one spot. The Ustashe told him, "You
baptized them." And he replied: "Yes, I baptized them and I will also kill them." They went
to Svinjica, and Dionizije ordered certain houses to be burned. He himself beat several
women whose men had fled into the woods.

Then they came back to the village Vinjacka, where everyone had already been rebaptized.
They surrounded the village and drove the inhabitants to Jasenovac. On the way, a few
were able to flee. Of 200 people, however, there is no trace. This terrorist action was
carried out under the direction of Ivan Orlic and other Crusaders. Today these murderers
are hiding in the forests.

Duro Malovic, born in Hrvatski Cuntic, railroader by trade, gave testimony about the
activity of the 5th Column in the cloister at Cuntic:

At the time of Yugoslavia, a priest by the name of Stjepan Holevacki came to us. He
wanted to organize the Croatian farmers in the "Brotherhood and Sisterhood of
Crusaders." Young people under 20 were young Crusaders, and in the "Crusader
Brotherhood" were those who were around 40. They conducted several gatherings, and
Holevacki explained to them how the Croats were supposed to organize and told how the
blessed Nikola Tavelic had led the battle against the Turks and against the opponents of
the priests. Also he told them that those who would fight in the ranks of the Crusaders
would be blessed.

Then came the Franciscan monks. Three of them held services; the others were laymen.
They came with a truck and became members of the organi-

350 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

zation of the Croatian Farmers Party. They wanted to unite with the politicians and hold
meetings with them.

In 1939, Dionizije Andrasec was cloister administrator in our village. Then came Herman
Kenavija and he became administrator of the cloister of Cuntic.

One Sunday I was in the church. He ordered the people and the young men to come into
the chancery of the church office to follow up on a notice. About 20 showed up and put
their names on a list. I didn't know what it was about, but later I found out. They held
meetings regularly and after a month, they declared to the people that this was a Catholic
organization that was carrying out a "Catholic action." As early as 1940 people from that
organization urged our youths to join them. They called themselves Ustashe. Until then, I
had heard nothing about the Ustashe and about Pavelic. I learned that Brother Kenavija
had talked with them about these things and had also told them that Pavelic was in Italy
and one day—he said he heard it himself on his radio—would come and together with the
Ustashe would seize power in Croatia.

Shortly before the war, these meetings became more frequent. One month before the
collapse in 1941, the cloister administrator invited the so-called Ustashe every evening to
listen to the radio news, because Ante Pavelic was speaking from Italy. Of course, people
from other villages also came to learn what was up and how the war would end. Once I
also went. Around midnight, I heard a speech by Ante Pavelic, who, as the cloister
administrator explained, was praising Germany and Italy and announced that Yugoslavia
one day would come to ruin and that he would leave exile and come to power.

That was in the night of 9 April—I was not yet a soldier and was too young for the army.

When I got up the next morning, I heard: Overthrow. The "Independent State of Croatia"
has been founded and proclaimed, and Ante Pavelic was coming back from Italy. He was
to be the poglavnik.

I went into the town. All the monks and all the young men had disappeared. Where were
they? They had gone to Petrinja, where the Ustashe were expecting the former Yugoslav
army. They were disarming soldiers and were removing their uniform coats and shirts.

Around noon a fancy car came into town. And who got out? It was the cloister
administrator Herman Kenavija. In the car were about 20 carbines. The cloister
administrator ran into the cloister and said that everyone who was still without a gun was
to fetch one, because the Yugoslav army was to be disarmed at various spots. The double-
barrel guns were distributed to the Ustashe.

After the collapse, the cloister administrator met with Rumler in Petrinja, who later
became general and as far as I know came from this town. Rumler was the mayor of
Petrinja, and Herman became the community administrator of Jabukovac, where he
himself then made Marko Lovrekovic the community secretary and Josip Tomazinic his
deputy. As community administrator,

Herman issued a call to arms and ordered the police to announce in the town that all
Orthodox people had to convert to the Catholic faith.

When the people saw that the Ustashe were terrorizing the Orthodox, robbing them,
stealing their clothes and shoes, and making them stand barefoot in the snow, they went
to the Catholic church St. Antun and brought all sorts of gifts: chickens, sheep, pigs,
calves, wine, liquor, etc. Everything was taken into the Franciscan cloister.

Of course, the cloister administrator was directing the entire action against the Orthodox
people. There were actually registrations for the conversions and some sort of little slips
of paper were made available, which were to confirm that no one need be afraid. But then
Herman proclaimed from the pulpit that in no instance could Serbs remain in Croatia and
that they were never again to walk on Croatian soil.

After this threat, everyone who had not yet done it, signed up for conversion. The names
were changed from Jovan to Ivan, from Stevan to Stjepan.

One day a message came from the community administrator from Jabu-kovac that
contained the order that the 18 richest Orthodox citizens were to be deported to Serbia.
And it happened, too. About 18 to 20 families were deported, and they were allowed to
take along only what they could carry in their hands. Since all 20 families and their
luggage had to fit on a truck, it was really little that they could take along.

Then the cloister administrator put on a pistol belt. He was an official military-state "FN."
Together with others, he went into the homes and properties of the deported families.
The monks took the best and most valuable objects for themselves on a wagon; the
remaining things they distributed among the Ustashe. It was the abbot personally who
did the distributing.

He made Ciga the director of the conversion action and sent him to the village of Maja.
Also he himself went there every morning and made appropriate entries into the files.

While I was still working on the railroad, Benko Ciga always carried a pistol. He wore a
monk's robe, a pistol, and then a long, black coat over it all. He had the pistol with him
every day. The cloister administrator Herman wore his weapon even in the church. When
he took off his church clothing after mass, the monk's cord and the pistol were both
visible, and it was clear that this was a threat for the people who were not willing to
convert. . . .

The chair: Do you have anything more to say?

Yes, I have something else to say. Right after that—it was around the 24th or 25th of July
—the Ustashe got orders to go to the Serb villages of Cuntic, Klinac, Donje, and Gornje
Mlinage. They were to take along all the inhabitants of these villages and order them to
dress in their good clothes, since they were to be baptized in St. Antun's Church. All the
Ustashe took on to carry out the orders. I know that, although I was not in the village,
because I was working.

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Of course, the people were very much afraid as they were preparing for the calamity. They
got dressed up, put on fresh underwear and suits, and went to St. Antun's. When they
arrived there, they saw that no one was there—neither the archbishop nor any Frater. So
they decided to go to Cuntic. A half a kilometer away there was a great plain below a
mountain. They went down there. When they got down there, they saw a great mass of
people surrounded by Ustashe. Of course, the cloister administrator was also there.
Benko Ciga was not there, only the cloister administrator. The inhabitants of the village
knew immediately that a mortal danger was threatening. The Ustashe forced them all into
a circle, made them perform a round dance and sing some Serb songs—I don't know what
else. Some were beaten with rifle butts and with wire. Finally they shot two or three
people. The judge of the court in Petrinja, Turki, shot two or three times with a machine
gun. Four or five people were killed. When the Ustashe had really gotten their ire up, they
called in the train, forced the village inhabitants into the cars, and drove them to
Grabovac. There another Ustasha band was already waiting for them and—mowed them
all down.
Of course the entire booty that had been gained in these communities was taken to the
cloister. I said that they managed with one truck when they went to Hrvatski Cuntic. In
October or November 1941, already 50 trucks were needed to transport the booty.

Attending the various meetings with the cloister administrator was Dr. Puk from Glina,
who, as I remember, was Minister of Justice, Dr. Rebok, who worked in the hospital in
Glina, and General Rumler.

In November, Colonel Mrak also took part. Probably you have already heard of Colonel
Mrak. He was the one who had started the crimes on Banja. And this Colonel Mrak,
whenever he needed information, went to no one other than the cloister administrator—
that is, the man who was also present at the rebaptisms and the killings and who had
connections with the ones in Church, the field camp leader, and the Ustashe, and who
ultimately in 1942 stayed usually in Zagreb, Sisak, or Karlovac, while the people's
liberation war was expanding: He must have gotten wind of something or other.
Appropriately, because in July 1942, the partisans liberated Hrvatski Cuntic. The cloister
administrator was not in the village. He was in Zagreb. The other monks locked
themselves in the tower of St. Antun's Church and stayed there. They pulled up all the
ladders so that the partisans could not get to them. When the Ustashe finally came into
the village, the partisans retreated, and the monks fled to Petrinja. I heard that the
Ustashe in Cuntic— 80 were from my village—had seen the cloister administrator
Herman Kenavija in Zagreb. He was wearing an Ustasha uniform.

Jozo Mikolasevic, born in 1916 in Podgarac, living in Budimci, rope maker by profession,
Croat, testifies to the activities of the priest Sidonije Sole in the baptisms.

The chair: What do you know about the rebaptizing of the Serbs in Budimci?

The priest Sidonije and the Ustasha camp director Hripko came into the village, rallied
the inhabitants, and held speeches. After that, they arranged a meeting to rebaptize all the
Orthodox people. The population tried to get a postponement in Nasice. From there,
however, the order came that the action was to be carried out on the spot and that
everything was to be prepared immediately. Then Sidonije appeared with several Ustasha
offcers and the district leader Hefer from Osijek, also with several officers. The re-
baptism was carried out in the church.

The chair: Did any of you sign an application in which there was a request for permission
to join the Catholic faith?

No.

The chair: So you were all baptized together? Yes.

The chair: Did the people do that voluntarily?


No, only under pressure from the Ustasha.

The chair: Is the village Budimci a Croatian or a Serb village?

The village is Serbian; there are only four of us Croats.

The chair: Was the populace persecuted by the Ustashe thereafter?

Later Ustashe came into the town and drove the whole population to the camp. In front of
the church, they held a speech. They asked: "Why are you looking after the partisans?**
Mrs. Milica Stojsic replied that the partisans forced the village people at gunpoint to
supply them. Mrs. Stojsic then was thrown into a burning house by the Ustashe.

The chair: So it didn't help them to assume the Catholic faith?

No. They were driven into the camp and 318 inhabitants died.

The chair: Does that include those who died in battle?

No.

Dane Vrkljan testifies on the cooperation of the priest Ivancic with the Ustashe.

The chair: What do you know about the rebaptism of the Serbs?

I know the following: In 1941, some days after the arrival of the occupation forces in our
area, the Ustashe arranged a demonstration in our village. At that time there were about
half Croats and half Serbs living in our village. The Ustashe ordered everyone, no matter
whether they were old or young,

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

to come to the reception of the convention guests from Osijek. About 600 people
gathered. The former district leader Stjepan Hefer came with two unknown Ustashe and
the pastor Ivancic from Brodjanci in a car from Osijek. Once the pastor had arrived, the
demonstration was opened. Up front in the procession were the children, behind them
adults, young men, and women, and in the back the old men and women. They paraded
through the village, followed the priest Ivancic, who told them the slogans they were to
chant. If he raised a finger, then "Pavelic, Pavelic, Pavelic!" had to be cried; when he
turned his hand, the slogan, was "Ante, Ante!" At the same time, the Ustashe went
through the crowd and checked everyone to see if he or she was participating in the
chanting of the slogans.

Finally the procession reached the church, in front of whose portals a platform had been
built. The former district leader Stjepan Meter was the first to speak to the people. The
two Ustashe from Zagreb followed and the pastor Ivancic was fourth. The latter said the
following in his speech: "I want to emphasize several other things that my predecessors
omitted. Who is guilty of all the tribulation that our poglavnik had to bear in the period of
his exile along with his colleagues who were with him? The Serbian people, the Serb
alone is guilty of this. In our Croatian land, the Serbs may no longer exist—away with the
dogs, send them across the Drina! But we have a good master who will take care of them.
And do you know who this master is? This master is our poglavnik." After the speech, the
drinking bout lasted all night. Pigs were roasted, etc. Some days later, the pastor Ivancic
came back into town with the then Ustasha field-camp director Stjepan Kazonic. They
drank all night, and on the next day they left again.

In the next night, the Ustasha field-camp director drove 15 Serbs out of our town into the
heath between Osijek and Capljina, beat them there until they were completely covered
with blood, threw them into a ditch, and mowed them down. After a week, the Pastor
Ivancic came into our town again to hold mass.

After he had done this, he went to the Ustasha field camp. From the door, I could see that
Simo Vukovic was waiting there, a father of eight children, to inquire about his horses
that had stayed with the former Yugoslav army. One hour after Simo Vukovic
encountered Ivancic, several Ustashe left the field camp and arrested him. He was taken
to the canal at the end of the village yet that evening, beaten, and abused. On the next day,
he was found there dead.

Approximately eight days after this event, the pastor Ivancic came to our village to
rebaptize the Serbs. He explained: "Every Serb who gets rebaptized will be left alone and
will be able to stay here." Also he informed us that they had to take part in religious
instruction and that they all had to learn to pray. Later when he indeed held religious
instruction, he had several armed Ustashe with him. They checked precisely to see who
was present and who was missing. In the evening, he asked the people why this one or
that one had not come.

Thus, for example, the Mrs. Boja Polovina had not appeared. The pastor asked her
husband where his wife was. He replied: "My wife is sick." The woman was indeed
pregnant and could not come. Immediately the pastor sent several Ustashe to get her.
They took the husband along. When they found Mrs. Polovina in the village, they insulted
and scolded her. "Get up! March, you bitch!*'

Because religious instruction was very short and it was therefore impossible to always
keep everything in your head, it frequently happened that someone did not know
something. This one was then ordered to report every four hours to the pastor—4
kilometers from Brodjanci.

On the day of the baptism, Hefer and several Ustashe came from town. After the
rebaptism, there was a drinking bout that lasted into the evening. A few days later I saw
14 people being driven to the camp, although they had been rebaptized and each had paid
70 Dinar for it. Two of these people died in the camp; the others were taken to the camp
in Gradiska.

After that, in the fall of 1943, I saw personally, along with my neighbor Duko Mitrovic—
we met between 11 and 12 o'clock—the pastor Ivancic in Ustasha uniform and with a gun
in his hand accompanied by field camp director Stjepan Kazonic and about 15 other
Ustashe comin t£ack from the activity in Poganovci. They went to the school. From there,
the pastor didn't leave the village until late in the night under cover in the direction of
Vaganac. Apparently he didn't want to be seen by anyone.

The public prosecutor: Did the Croats protest the crimes of the priests and the Ustashe?

How were we to protest? We didn't dare move. On orders of the priests, the Ustashe came
under our windows at night, to my place, for instance, and knocked loudly to see if
anyone was at home or not.

The public prosecutor: It is constantly claimed that all this happened in the interest of the
Croatian people. When the Serbs were mowed down, was that the will of the Croatian
people?

It didn't happen in our name; it happened in theirs.

Ivan Vicic, agriculture student from Osijek, speaks about the Priest Jakob Seb:

In 1941 in all the sermons spoken by the Catholic priests in Osijek, it was said that every
Serb had to be rebaptized. I still remember that religion classes were held for the
Orthodox and that they were rebaptized when they had taken part in them two or three
times.

The chair: Did you have the impression that the Serbs accepted the Catholic faith
voluntarily?

My school colleagues did not convert voluntarily.

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

The chair: Were you converted? Yes.

The chair: Who forced you to do it?

It was mainly Jakob Seb who was religion instructor at my school at that time. He said
that everyone had to convert, otherwise he would not be admitted to the school any more.

The chair: Did you notice any other measures against the Serbs?
I know that the Serbs in Osijek were arrested. In one night, there was a mass arrest.
Afterwards they were taken to the camp.

Mihajilo Duricic testifies about the behavior of the monks led by Dionizije Juricev.

The chair: What do you know about the persecution of the Serbs and about the
compulsory conversions?

I remember the following events:

In October of 1941, several monks came to our town with the Ustasha authority. They
admonished the people to come to religious instruction and to convert to the Catholic
faith. Among the monks was one whose name I remember well, Dionizije Juricev. He
said, once the people had gathered: "Anyone who does not assume the Catholic faith has
no place in the NDH, because in the NDH only Croats can live and no one else." The
instruction took about a week, and when it was over, a banquet was held at which several
Ustasha officers and the priest were present. They held a lot of empty speeches and they
explained to the people whom they had gathered to this banquet— it was a small
congregation with about 2,700 people, all Serbs—that no one was threatened because they
had all become loyal citizens of the NDH. Thereafter they left the village and left the
priest August Kralj behind. Every Sunday he held the mass, organized choruses to sing in
the church, and such things. He stayed almost a year. During this time, he explained again
and again that we were all Croats and that we had never been Serbs. We had been
rebaptized soon enough and therefore had nothing to fear.

Almost a year later, at the beginning of October 1942, a group of Ustashe came to our
town and settled there. I asked the pastor, who visited me frequently not only as a
spiritual shepherd but also as a friend, what this meant. He guaranteed me that there was
no danger and charged me with telling this to the others.

But hardly three days had passed when in the night of 13 October 1942 a large number of
Ustashe from Jasenovac surrounded the whole community unnoticed. Since we had not
expected this, no guards had been posted. The small Ustasha group staying in the town
had probably prepared the terrain.

In the gray of morning—it was foggy—I tried to escape into the neighboring town. The
Ustashe nabbed me, however, right on the street and drove me along with several
neighbors to the middle of the town. There we encountered a second group of Ustashe
driving women and children ahead of them— half naked, just as they had been gotten
from their beds. Along with these Ustashe was also our pastor August Kralj. His robe,
which hung below his knees, was very dirty. He had walked over the fields wet with dew
in order to show the Ustashe how to surround the community so we would not be able to
see into the woods.
I asked him: "What does this mean, Reverend?" "Don't be afraid. You're only going down
to the Save and will return home again soon—and see to it that no one runs away!" he
replied. I didn't believe him and at the next opportunity used the tumult and the fog to
escape into the woods. The Ustashe took about 2,000 people prisoner and drove them all
to Jasenovac. Only about 500 were able to escape.

When we came back into town about three days later, we found 34 victims there
mutilated in all sorts of ways. Among them was a young woman who had been impaled on
a stake. They had hacked off body parts from a young man. Some had been killed with
blunt instruments and had been mutilated terribly. We buried them.

Later we learned that the pastor had long planned his retreat from the town. Together
with the Ustashe, he had taken his things and the objects from the plundered houses in
about 40 vehicles. He had gone to Sunja and stayed there.

The public prosecutor: Where is he now?

We dont know. Up until last year, he was pastor in Sunja. In the last year I myself moved
to Sunja. They told me he told the people in a pastoral letter that the partisans were
heretics, that they drove horses into the churches, slept there, and that the churches for
them were not sacred. . . . The people, however, came to realize that he was an enemy of
the people. When he became aware of that, he disappeared one day and no one knew
where he had gone and what had happened to him. Then another pastor came. But he
didn't stay long, either, and now a third is there. We don't know where August Kralj is
now. While he was still in Bog, he had a motorcycle and went to Zagreb every week. On
Sunday, he held mass, stayed one or two days in Bog, and then went to Zagreb. . . .

The public prosecutor: He went to Zagreb every week?

Every week.

The public prosecutor: Here today archbishop Stepinac sits accused. He claims that he
neither knew that people at that time were being killed by the Ustashe nor how this
happened and least of all that priests had anything to do with it. He has maintained this
during the whole trial. What do you think?

358 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

What I said isn't known just to me. Two hundred to four hundred people from my village
can confirm it.

(Long applause in the court room)

The chair: You said that from your village, Crkveni Bok, 2,000 people were taken to
Jasenovac?
Yes.

The chair: Did they come home?

Yes, except for eight people who live there. But this happened only under pressure. Five
hundred courageous people fled into the woods and 100 to Banija to the partisans. In the
triangle [the area between the rivers Kupa, Una, and Petrova, translator's note], where a
great part of the Serb people live, there were 2,000 other courageous people: on the third
or fourth day, they sent a deputation, because a General Tumler and Seitz, the secretary of
Pavelic, came, and they said that all of them would go to the partisans if they did not
release the prisoners. Under pressure from the Germans, who had an interest in seeing
that not so many would fight on the side of the partisans, they let the prisoners go.

Ilija Subaric, farmer from the village of Josevica, speaks about the effect of the
collaboration of Stepinac with the Ustashe even before the war:

I remember that in the beginning of 1941 in Sarajevo I was surprised by the capitulation
of the former Yugoslavia and already then had the opportunity to see how individual
people from Hercegovina were brought into the camp and were shot there. I did not know
the reason.

Then I came home and was inducted into the army in July of this same year. There I was
witness to the disappearance of individual Serbs who had been inducted into the Croatian
army and who came with the usual certificate of baptism. Where they disappeared to, I
don't know. I also know that in Glina several young women from the surrounding villages
were rebaptized. They went to the Catholic church regularly. However, they were arrested
and likewise disappeared.

Then, I know of a family from Gornji Grabovac that had been rebaptized, later arrested,
and they disappeared; no one knows where.

Many reported voluntarily for rebaptism to save their lives. Some, for example, Petar
Vreca, Jefto Marie, Topalovic, and Avdalovic even, submitted requests themselves, which
were then recognized. After that, religious training was given for two weeks and finally
the ceremony for the conversion from Orthodoxy to the Roman Catholic faith was held.
Seven or eight days later, I invited the pastor to dinner and asked him whether he could
guarantee the life of the Serbs who had accepted the Roman Catholic faith. Smiling, he
answered me: "I have saved their souls."—After a short time,

Marie, Topalovic, and Avdalovic were killed just like the other Orthodox people.

Milica Pekic, born in Bijelo Brdo, living in Karlovac, just 14 years old:

The chair: Tell us, please, what you know about the rebaptism of the Serbs into the
Catholic faith.
(The girl is confused.)

They were rebaptized. ... I don't know anything about it.

The Chair: Were you there when violence and murders were committed against the
Serbs?

Yes, I saw them kill the Serbs. They rebaptized them in 1941 and murdered them in 1942.

The chair: How were they rebaptized?

They baptized my mother, but not me and one little boy. They rebaptized my mother and
my father.

The chair: Did they rebaptize your father and your mother with violence? Yes, with
violence; they had to submit to rebaptism. The chair: Why did they have to?

Because they wanted to live. Anyone who didn't submit was killed.

The chair: When did they begin killing?

In the spring they began.

The chair: In what year?

1942.

The chair: In 1942?—When did the Ustashe come?

The Ustashe came and started mowing everything down. . . . Me, too! Here!

(The girl points to her neck.)

The chair: Tell us about it; don't be afraid.

The Ustashe took away 125 people from my village and murdered everyone, everyone that
they had taken away.

The chair: Did your father and mother survive?

My mother survived, but not my father.

The chair: Did they kill him?

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Stabbed and killed him.


The chair: Did they intend to kill you, too?

They captured me at home and took me into the woods along with all the others who
were there at the time. Then they killed them all.

The chair: How did you save yourself?

They stabbed us and threw us into the ditch. Then they went away. When they began
singing, I stood up and ran with two boys through the woods to the village of Kolobuc.

The chair: Where did they stab you?

In the woods.

The chair: Show us on your body.

(The girl raises her hair to the horror of everyone in the room and shows her wounds.)

The chair: What did they stab you with?

With a bayonet.

The chair: How?

In six places with the bayonet.

The chair: Did your brothers and sisters also die?

Three brothers and one sister were stabbed to death.

The chair: And in the village? How many were killed there?

About 20 old people; they killed them all.

The chair: They killed them all?

All of them were stabbed to death.

The chair: How did it happen that there were only 20 people in the village?

The public prosecutor: The girl said "old people."

That happened in several villages.

The chair: The others fled into the woods?


Yes, into the woods, and went to the partisans. . . .

Mara Rupcic, farmer's wife from Udbina, speaks about the priest Mate

Mogus:

When the first Serbs were being rebaptized, the priest Mate Mogus was there. He
gathered the Ustashe around him and whatever he commanded them, they did it. In
Udbina, where he lived, and in the surrounding villages, there were quite a few Orthodox
people. On orders of the priest, the Ustashe slaughtered the Orthodox and eliminated
them. Mogus had the Orthodox come to him and took bribes from them. The people paid
because they were afraid.

One day he gathered the Orthodox from three villages, because they were to be
rebaptized. When they had gathered in the church—we Croats were there, too—he told
them: "Go out to the monument to King Petar; I will speak to you there." The poor people
went out to hear the speech. Mogus gathered the Ustashe around him and turned to the
people: "You Serbs have come to be rebaptized. No one will rebaptize you. I am supposed
to baptize the wolf, and the wolf just runs into the woods. For you, there is no salvation,
whether you are baptized or not." He pointed to the Ustashe and continue: "Look at my
Ustashe; they are my twelve falcons. Wherever I send them, they waste everything. They
destroy everything, and when they go home, they sing. They are capable of killing these
12,000 Serbs. You Serbs, for you there is no hope, even if you go into the woods. I will
find you there, too!"

We Croats and the Orthodox people lived well with each other. Mogus continued: "We
will divide up your land, because there is no hope for you. Go wherever you want." Then
the poor people ran away out of fear and never came back.

In Udbina about half the people were Orthodox and the other half Croats. On orders from
Mogus, all the Orthodox were destroyed. They dragged them to the Velebit mountains,
from where they never returned.

Once a woman went to the Ustashe to plead for her husband. The woman had ten
children and her husband was in prison. She was accompanied by several Croatian
civilians. The Ustashe told them that they would listen only to instructions from the
priest: He commands, they obey. "We see that this is a poor woman, and we know about
her husband, who was captured and is sitting in prison. But without the priest, we dare
not do anything." Then the civilians went to the priest and asked him: "We plead to you
for this woman, she lives among us, and we get along well together. Please, save these
poor people." He replied: "I will kill this bitch, so I don't have to see her again, and throw
her in the canal. That I will tell my Ustashe to do. The bitch will be destroyed, so she
won't stink any more."
In the further course of the hearing, Mara Rupcic also reported on the crimes of the priest
in the village of Susice. A mail carrier who went to this town regularly was attacked by
partisans along the way. But he managed to flee in his car. When he told this to the pastor
later, the latter threatened him that he would kill him if he brought mail to Susice again.
In Susice,

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

he said, there would soon be no more Serbs. "No one will survive. I will destroy all of
them," threatened the priest. On the next morning, the mail carrier was accompanied by
ten Ustashe. Again they were stopped by partisans. Three Ustashe were killed, the others
fled, and the car was left behind. To avenge himself, the priest thereupon had his Ustashe
kill five people and another twelve Orthodox people from the surrounding villages who
were in prison, had them abused, murdered, and thrown in ditches. I saw it myself. The
remaining Orthodox people immediately left the village and none returned. The priest
ordered the civilians to kill any Serb wherever they see one. He said they dare not exist
here and would have to be wiped out.

Josip Ban, employee, born in Ledenice, speaks about the Ustasha terror.

The chair: What do you know about how the Serbs were rebaptized and persecuted?

Right after the collapse of Yugoslavia, the Ustashe began to intern the Serbs and drive
them to the camps. In September 1941, they tore down the Orthodox church in the village
of Suhopoljsko Borovo. The bell and all the other valuables were taken away. Where, I
don't know. Tiles, stones, and everything that remained of the church they sold to the
Germans, the Hungarians, and the Croats who were living then in Borovo. On 21
November 1941 they began to rebaptize the Serbs. Two monks came to our village from
Virovitica. They were accompanied by the camp director Bakic and other Ustasha
functionaries.

Two weeks later, they continued the rebaptism action. This time it involved those who
were not in the first round. Before the second date, the Ustashe appeared from Suhopolje
and Virovitica with the camp director Bakic and one other camp director, whose name I
cannot remember. But I believe that it was Vargolir. They ordered the Serbs to be
rebaptized, otherwise they would be taken to the camp or killed. Also two priests came
from Suhopolje, whom I did not know. They held gatherings and admonished the Serbs
also to be baptized. Then supposedly nothing more would happen to them. But from this
day on, the murders, plundering, and ravaging did not stop, and people continued to be
taken to the camp.

On a day in September 1941, four trucks arrived in Borovo early in the morning. In them
sat Ustashe. I was still in bed, but when I saw what was happening, I got up and ran into
the vineyard. That's what I always did whenever I learned that the Ustashe had come.
They surrounded the whole village. Everybody was squeezed into a courtyard. There they
separated the Serbs from the Croats, Germans, and Hungarians. There were again about
25 to 30 Serbs, among them women and children, separated and taken to a room. There
they were beaten black and blue. Later all but four people

were locked in the trucks. But the four were tortured bestially: They tore out their arms,
legs, and eyes. After these abuses, they were killed and buried in the manure ditch.

In the meantime—it was about noon—I had ventured out of the vineyard onto the street.
There I encountered two Ustashe. One of them was a known henchman, a certain Josip
Polgar. He arrested me, laid his gun on my shoulder, and accused me of being a Croatian
traitor. I unbuttoned my blouse and shouted for him to shoot me; he would thus kill a
better and more upstanding person than himself. He didn't do it. He slung his gun on his
shoulder and let me go ahead of him. He drove me to the truck in which the Serbs were
and threw me in. The truck was full of blood. I can't say any more.

The chair: And what happened then with this truck?

They drove us to Virovitica to the camp. . . .

Ostoja Samardzija, assistant in a forestry business, from Mlaka, speaks about how the
rebaptisms were carried out in his village:

On approximately 15 March 1942, a priest appeared from Zagreb. He had been sent to
rebaptize all the residents of Mlaka. Once he had arrived, he summoned first the men,
almost all of them older men. The meeting took place in an inn. I went to hear what the
priest wanted and what he would talk about. He explained approximately the following: "I
come from the bishopric of Zagreb. I was interned in Istria with about 400 other priests.
Since there is no more room for us there, I was sent here to rebaptize you." The people
replied that they did not believe that and that they would not fall for such a thing as long
as they have not spoken with the others. Then the priest began to scold loudly and said
that those who do not submit to rebaptism are enemies of the "Independent State of
Croatia" and would be declared fair game. But those who behaved differently would enjoy
full rights and would be "purebred Croats." Then the meeting was interrupted.

On the next day at 8 o'clock, thirty Ustashe appeared who had been waiting at the train
station and forced the whole population of Mlaka into the parsonage. The priest was there
already and several Ustashe, who were probably officers. When we had all assembled, he
held a speech: "I was sent here from Zagreb, from the bishopric of Zagreb, to rebaptize
you Orthodox people and convert you to the Catholic faith. I will stay here for the next
week. In this time you will study from the catechism and prepare yourselves. Each of you
will bring a tax of 40 Kuna, which is payable to us." So the people went to religion classes
for a week. Every day the Ustashe went around in the village, fetched them from their
houses, and drove them into the parsonage.

On the eighth day, when the rebaptism was to take place, we were called into the big hall
of the parsonage, which was already overfull with people. There again was the priest and
several Ustasha officers. In each corner of

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

the hall stood an Ustasha with a machine gun pointed. In the middle, the priest had taken
a seat and at a table next to him sat an Ustasha, the so-called confirmation godfather.
Next to the table, stood two Ustashe, who each carried a candelabra and a candle. We
went one after the other to the table. Before the priest, each had to raise three fingers and
repeat the following oath: "I swear by God. . . ."I can't remember the rest of the text. Then
each had to say: "I am no longer a Serb, not Orthodox, but a pure-blooded Croat." Then at
another place 40 Kuna was paid by each in cash.

When it was all over, the priest held a speech in which he said: "You whom we have
rebaptized today are now pure-blooded Croats. You now have the right to serve in the
army. Whoever wants to can also join the Ustasha army. He should then report to the
field camp. He will be accepted there."

Then this confirmation godfather also said a few words: "I am here the commandant and
you all know me in Mlaka. Beginning today, I am your confirmation godfather. You are all
to call me 'godfather.' "

This was on 13 April and already on the 14th at 6 o'clock in the morning came the
infamous Ustasha Vasilj Panic along with this confirmation godfather to arrest the whole
town. All the residents were arrested, tortured, and sent to the camp. On the next day they
butchered 26 men and transported the others to the camp at Jasenovac together with
women and children. Of the 1,232 people that they had expelled from Mlaka, only 145
returned home after the war.

Branko Stankovic, born in Slobostina near Slavonska Pozega, reports on the compulsory
baptisms and the burning of people in the church.

The chair: What do you know about the compulsory baptism of the Serbs?

I know that the Serbs in 1942 were rebaptized. A certain Bozidar Santic, a missionary or
monk from Zagreb, came to our town to the parsonage that was there then in Slobostina.
At a teacher's house, I was by chance talking with him and asked him who sent him here.
He told me the Archbishop's See in Zagreb sent him. During this time, he also carried out
the rebaptism action.

In the baptism, he forced the people to repeat some prayer, which they didn't want to do
right away. So he began to speak, but the people didn't want to follow him. He started a
second time, but again no one wanted to join his prayer; on the third try, he said that he
would have to turn them over to the Ustasha quarters if they did not choose to speak. So
they were forced to repeat his prayer and join the Roman Catholic faith; he carried out
this rebaptism in other villages, too. When the people hesitated, he threatened that the
Ustasha would come for them and punish them.

On 14 August 1942, the compulsory baptism of the people from the neighboring villages
of Dezevci, Zigrovci, Skendrovci, and those from the Kozara mountains in Bosnia was
carried out. And although they had joined

the Catholic faith, the Ustasha drove about twenty to thirty of the town inhabitants into
the church, locked them up there, and set the church on fire; the remaining five to six
hundred were thrown into the well. In all, four wells thus became mass graves. At the
baptisms themselves, they said that the people would be protected and would not be
persecuted if they would convert. However, these were empty promises: they continued to
persecute the people and committed crimes against them.

Jozo Jelcic, tailor from Capljina, reports on the priest Don Ilija Tomasic:

In the year 1941, when the Ustashe had begun with the slaughters, the priest Don Ilija
Tomasic announced in the village Pribirovci and the surroundings that he would give his
guarantee that the Serbs who accept the Catholic faith would be left in peace. He taught
the people what they had to know for the first days. He began with the prayers and
distributed a little book in the form of a brochure to every house. Two or three days later,
the village, which was pure Serb and had about 1,300 inhabitants, was surrounded by the
Ustashe. Although he who had guaranteed that nothing would happen was there, the
Ustashe came and picked up 240 men, women, and children and drove them to the gorge
Usurman. Some fled, but the women and children remained and were thrown into the
gorge by the Ustashe. Some threw themselves into the gorge out of horror.

Frater Tugomir Soldo in the years 1940 and 1941 led the "Union of Saint Anton" in
Capljina. In the year 1941, it was revealed that this Catholic club was nothing more than a
club of murderers.

The public prosecutor: Was Frater Soldo also an Ustasha?

He said that he was an Ustasha already in 1934.

The public prosecutor: Who was the leader at that time?

The mayor was Rebac, but he told Rebac that he would assume full powers and began to
fire the people who were from the HSS [Croatian Farmers Party, translator's note] and
from other parties.

The public prosecutor: That means he had civil and spiritual powers. You said you had
heard that the former members of the "Union of Saint Anton" were ninety percent
murderers.

Yes, they were all Ustashe and murderers. At the capitulation of the Yugoslav army, they
immediately put on the uniform of the war-mongering Ustashe.

Simo Manigodic, merchant from Konjic, gave eyewitness testimony about the
persecutions and the compulsory rebaptisms in his area:

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Right after the founding of the infamous so-called Independent State of Croatia, the
followers of Macek and the Ustashe came into the area of Hercegovina. Our pastor in
Jablanica, Frater Nikola Ivankovic, received one of their transports and held
approximately the following speech: "Strike and slaughter everything that is Serbian, even
the child at its mother's breast."

Then the persecution of the Serbs began all over Croatia. They threw the Serbs alive, half
dead, and dead into various ravines. The Serbs were terribly abused in all of Hercegovina.

Then they distributed printed forms and required a written declaration of conversion to
the Catholic faith. Many of my relatives signed to save their lives. Those who gave their
signature were sent home, while the others were killed in prisons. Later they picked up
the Serbs in Ljubinje, Mostar, Ljubusko, Trebinje, Konjic, Capljina, and other places. They
picked up about 500 people and took them to the camp in Jablanica, where they kept
them for a few days. During this time, these 500 women, men, and children dug a ditch
and were instructed to lay electric current through this grave. However, some decent
Croats and Moslems from Jablanica discovered this. To save the threatened Serbs from
death, they informed the Germans in Sarajevo directly. Then some German officers came,
looked over the situation, and ordered the people to be released from the camps. Then
everyone was taken to Gospic and killed. As of now, no one has returned home, and I
believe that no one will return any more.

Officially it was said that the Serbs were to either die under the knife, emigrate, or be
rebaptized. They couldn't emigrate, and so anyone who wanted to save his head had to
accept the Catholic faith.

The pastor Nikola Ivankovic, otherwise an Ustasha field-camp director, said to one of my
relatives: "Why do you risk your life by not assuming the Catholic faith?"

Although they had assumed the Catholic faith, 20 to 30 people were killed every day and
thrown into the ravines. Some of them survived the tortures and will best be able to
report on the misery that was caused in our areas.

But to somehow protect ourselves, we sent pleas to Glavas in the then Ministry of
Religion and Education; he again issued permission certificates for us to convert to the
Catholic faith, on which it was confirmed that we would be seen as equal citizens.

But it wasn't true, because of all of us, only we three remain alive.

Without consideration for his religion, every decent Serb, Croat, or Moslem in our state
judges those who committed monstrous violence, and we hope that the high court will
pronounce the most severe punishment for everyone who is guilty of the horrors and
tortures that we had to experience. . . .

Mico Ignjatovic, potter from Brcko, accuses Stepinac and Ilija Violani of compulsory
rebaptisms and persecution of the Serbs:

The rebaptism actions in Brcko began in 1941. They tried to force us to convert with the
threat that then nothing would happen to us. Certain people, retired people, state
employees, and some others actually converted, but the others, I among them, held our
ground and were locked up because of it. We were periodically released for a short time,
but then were locked up again. But again no one converted. The war criminal Dr. Ilija
Violani, who in the first days after the liberation by the people was condemned and shot,
several times had a talk with the presently accused archbishop Dr. Alojzije Stepinac, but
that didn't change anything.

When Dr. Alojzije Stepinac dispatched Dr. Ilija Violani in November, he brought along
two companies, the 18th and the 5th Ustasha company composed of Ustasha immigrants.
The commander of the 18th company was Captain Barjak; Captain Franjo Kastel was the
commander of the 5th company. They came to Brcko on 29 November. On the same
evening, they arrested several innkeepers and made them our missionaries; and when
they released them on the next day, they said that the application for conversion had to be
submitted by the 1st of December in the morning. If we did not choose to convert, they
would make us a head shorter. From two to four o'clock in the afternoon, they herded up
over 150 Serb family men and sons. When the Ustasha patrols had gathered us up, they
threw us in the high school like in a cage. There they beat us with anything that they had
at hand, with rifle butts and with whips. At 15 degrees below zero (centigrade) they took
off our sweaters and shoes, took away our winter coats from four o'clock to twelve o'clock
and beat us for seven hours without interruption. They made us walk naked and barefoot
to Gunja, for four kilometers along the railroad. They locked up 60 Serbs who were
unable to walk and seven Jews. There we remained for 24 hours.

In the evening came the infamous county chief Montani with the Ustashe and said: "We
weren't aware that you had submitted applications." We didnt know this either! "OK, you
are now free, and tomorrow you will go to the rebaptism."

On 2 December, we appeared in the church office. There they gave us pre-prepared forms
that had been brought from Zagreb. We signed our names. On 2 December in the evening,
they plundered the Orthodox church, which was the richest and biggest in Bosnia and
Hercegovina, removed all the gold objects and valuable books, set them afire and tore
them down to the foundations; after that, they held celebrations there.

Then they went to the cemetery and desecrated all the Serb-Orthodox graves and
monuments with dynamite and hammer blows. We were rebap-tized, which, however,
didn't help us, because the persecutions continued and we were terrorized and persecuted
even as converts.

Petar Glavas, carpenter from Zagreb, victim of the Ustasha terror:

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

I know a lot about the Ustasha crimes, but I don't know where to begin. The chair: Tell us
what was the most horrible.

Then I will talk about what I myself experienced. They arrested me on 24 February 1944
and took me to Zvonimirova Street. There was the notorious Ustasha police. I was
arrested by the agents of the infamous Drazenovic and interrogated and tortured by him
himself. They hit my arms, legs, and head using a wire with steel particles. They beat me
black and blue and then tied my hands. I was all blue and bloody. I told them: "Is this how
you treat the Croatian people?!" On their hands, they wore something hard with which
they knocked out my teeth; since then I have worn false teeth. They kicked me with their
Ustasha boots and broke my knee cap; I still suffer from it today. Then they tied my arms
and beat me with an iron bar below my knees; they tied me to a rod between the desk and
the chair so that I was hanging in the air with my feet upwards. They beat me on the legs
and the kidneys and wherever else they could. They stripped me and questioned me about
everything imaginable, things I didn't know anything about and about which I could not
tell them anything. They took me to a dark basement and threw me among the others and
didn't question me further.

Only when I came to in the morning did I see where I was. I was all blue, bloody, and
swollen. For several days, they did not give me anything to eat, although my wife and
children had brought food. Some days later they took me to Nova Ves to Dordiceva Street,
where I was tortured again. When I got to the prison, I thought that no one could be
tortured like me. But I saw that there were much worse cases who were completely dark
blue under their shirts from the blows.

Then I was in Savska Cesta Street for a short time, and from there they took me to the
Gradiska camp, where I had to do heavy loading. The food was bad and our arms and legs
began to swell. They cooked us "cornmeal mush," as we prisoners named it; that was
mouldy flour in water, no fat, no salt. They forced us to perform more and more difficult
work.
Then they took us in a rather small group to Jablanac, which was a kind of farm. There
the Ustashe abused us as they saw fit. Sundays were the worst. Then the Ustashe went to
Orahovica and got drunk, and when they returned, they took us individually to the bunker
and questioned us: "Where is Tito?" Then they ordered each one of us to lie down; they
walked on us and beat us in every possible way. They beat some to death and then took
them to the wire fence; the next day they assembled the prisoners and said: "See, these
guys tried to escape." Then they fetched five or six more people and shot them next to the
ones lying there, whom they had taken from the bunker totally beaten.

After the time that I had spent in Jablanac, I was taken to Jasenovac at the beginning of
fall. That was an equally terrible hell. In the first days, there weren't many of as, but in
November 1944 and in December of the

same year, Jasenovac looked like an ant hill. People came from all directions: women,
children, mothers with children in their arms. . . . They waited all day between the
barracks and even in the evening they had no roof over their heads. On the next day,
when they were taken away, they never got to either the men's camp nor the women's
camp. They simply disappeared.

I knew comrade Ivan Komadina, who looked after the clerk duties in the camp. One day I
asked him how many of us there were, but I dont remember any more whether he told
me nine thousand or fourteen thousand. After a few days, the liquidations began. At
night, they took the prisoners away and killed them.

At this time, I was working in the wood shop, and the Ustashe came in every day to have
their knives and daggers sharpened. Once I alone sharpened five daggers. One Ustasha
told me: "If you don't make this knife as sharp as a razor, you will be the first one whose
throat I cut." They took the prisoners behind the wood shop and behind the metal factory
and killed them there. They were taken there in the evening. I didn't see them, but I know
that they were slaughtered, because I heard their screams and the blows of the
murderers. Several times I heard a mother calling. "Spare my child!" The men screamed
seldom. Sometimes one heard the scream "Ow," but they did not scream as loud as the
women.

There was a boy with us working as an apprentice but only 9 or 10 years old. One night
they came into our room and fetched the boy. He screamed and begged them: "Leave me
alone, please, I am good, I am innocent." It didn't help; they took him away.

In the same way, a little boy who was locked up with his father was fetched by the
Ustashe and taken away. The little boy screamed: "Papa, don't leave me. ..." The father
took the child and carried it away, then he came back alone. On the next evening, he, too,
was taken.

It was one huge slaughter. Only four thousand of us survived.


Right before Christmas 1944,1 was transferred to Lepoglava with another 64 people. The
transport from Jasenovac to Lepoglava took a week. Of 64 people, only 60 arrived. Right
at Christmas time, that is, between the 25th and the 26th of December, we got to
Lepoglava. We prisoners talked among ourselves about whether it would be any better
there. But it was even worse. Twice a day we got allegedly cooked turnips, which,
however, was usually a swallow of pure water, neither salty nor greasy. We never saw any
bread. The greater part of the prisoners were from the surrounding area: Croats from
Zagorje and Varazdin. Many people could not stand it and died of starvation. Each day 15
to 20 people died. One night, the Ustashe came into the cell and got us out of bed and
forced us to bury them. On this evening, eight of us had to bury 24 people. The wagon
with the bodies got into mud and wouldn't budge. They beat us, but we could not get the
wagon out. We had to carry the bodies on our backs, one after the other. We laid them in
the ditch and threw dirt on them, and then we returned to the wagon. The Ustashe beat us
again, because the wagon couldn't be pulled out of the

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

mud. When we returned, they lined us up and ordered us: "Lie down! Stand up!" They
didn't leave us alone until they went to sleep.

The individual cells were built for one person and were perhaps 150 by 130 centimeters.
In these single cells, 6 to 8 people slept, but our number diminished very quickly, and
then there was room in the individual cells.

When the People's Liberation Army approached and liberation was at hand, their sadism
increased even more: every night beatings with a club. They abused the people in every
possible way. One evening, around 5 o'clock, as I was by chance in the hallway, I saw
them beating someone with an iron bar until he fell to the floor. I don't know if they
killed him. I can't remember now everything that happened and everything I experienced,
but I can say that it is only a hundredth of all that I saw and experienced.

The public prosecutor: Listen, Lisak. Is it true what Glavas says?

I was neither in Jasenovac nor in Lepoglava.

The public prosecutor: I ask you, is it true what the witness has said?

(Silence)

The public prosecutor: You have heard it now; was he telling stories or did he tell the
truth?

I can't know; I was neither in Jasenovac nor in Lepoglava.

The public prosecutor: Are the statements correct; what do you think?
They might be partially accurate.

The public prosecutor: And tell Stepinac sitting there next to you how the Croatian people
died under the Ustashe.

Matilda Strazemarac reports on the death of her twenty-year-old daughter, whom the
Ustasha hanged:

They arrested my daughter in the administrative offices of the state rail system. They
came to my residence and searched it, these informants—like common thieves. When
they came in, they laid the revolver on the table. I stood there and tried to go to the
kitchen—I was baking bread. "Don't move." My legs stiffened, and I couldn't move. Then I
heard how they had locked up my child. I went to the reviewer who was interrogating her
and asked about her. He told me that he would sentence her to six months in jail. But the
case would have to go to Lisak.

The chair: And what happened then?

Then they killed my child.

The chair: Where did they kill her?

In Sveta Nedelja. The chair: Hanged? Yes.

The chair: How old was she?

Twenty years old, Mr. Chair. Look. . . . (The witness stands up, approaches the chair's
table and shows the picture of her daughter.) She was a good soul. (She cries.) Today I am
alone. I also lost my husband through this matter. He was sick, and that affected him so
much that he died. I took her things to the accursed Ustasha police for Public Order and
Security. The things, Mr. Chair, don't mean anything to me. I got nothing from my child
that I could kiss. They stole everything from me, everything. (She cries.) When they had
killed her, they removed her suit, the jacket, the shoes, and the stockings. She was
barefoot. (The witness stands up, turns around, and looks at the accused.) Where is the
criminal?! Oh, where is he?! It is terrible. . . .

The chair: Take her out of the room. (The witness leaves the room crying.)

The chair: Defendant Stepinac, did you hear from the statements of the witness what
criminals we are dealing with here? Do you still stick to your claim that you were
discussing only civil matters when you were meeting with Lisak, Luburic, and other
criminals at meetings, dinners, banquets, etc.?

My conscience is completely peaceful and clear.


The chair: Your conscience and Lisak's as well?

Completely clear.

(Archives of Vladimir Dedijer—source material on the court proceedings against Alojzije


Stepinac)

Roman Catholic priest at the ceremony of rebaptism of Orthodox Serbs in the village of
Mikleus near Kutina—private collection.
Mass rebaptism of Serbs— Hrvatski slikopisni tjednik, Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.

374 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

Compulsory rebaptism—Yugoslav Cinemathek Nr. 5047.


The Interrogation of the Accused Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb

The chair: Accused Stepinac, do you know how many Serbs were rebaptized from
Orthodox to the Catholic faith during the occupation?

I do not know.

The chair: Do you know that there was a number of rebaptisms?

I do not know exactly how often this happened.

The chair: But you surely know that it was a great number?

There was talk of it; but we do not have exact figures.

The chair: That was no normal number of conversions as was usual in normal times.
There were indeed more.

Yes!

The chair: You know that? I know that.

The chair: What was your attitude toward these conversions? I have already made a
statement on that. The chair: Where?

In the protocol and in the documents that we published.

The chair: Do you know that there were compulsory conversions?

Never on our part.

375

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

The chair: But the Ustashe did exert pressure? What the others did has nothing to do with
me. The chair: So you did not exert pressure? No.

The chair: Did you have any means of pressure at your disposal? None.

The chair: That means then that you were not able to exert any force. That came only
from the Ustashe?

I am sticking with my statement in the protocol.

The chair: In this statement, you said among other things that at the time of the NDH
fewer Serbs converted to the Catholic faith than Catholics to Orthodoxy during the
occupation. Do you stick with this statement?

The entire number is difficult to determine, but I know how many had converted at the
time of Yugoslavia.

The chair: How large is this number? Can you cite the number?

I do not know it exactly, but it was a large number.

The chair: Was force used in the conversion of the Croats to the Orthodox faith?

Certainly.

The chair: Do you know exactly how many converted? I know approximately.

The chair: This is peculiar. You don't know how many Serbs converted to the Catholic
faith. But you know how many Croats accepted the Orthodox faith during the time of
Yugoslavia. What formalities were prescribed by the Church officials for the conversions?

My chancery can answer that.

The chair: Was it necessary for applications to be made for conversion? They were made.

The chair: In every individual case? Yes.

The chair: To whom? To the Ecclesiastical See.

The chair: To the Ecclesiastical See of the appropriate bishopric?

The Interrogation of the Accused Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb 377 Yes.

The chair: So in the area of the archbishopric of Zagreb, to you?

To the Archbishopric Court.

The chair: So the applications were made there?

Yes.

The chair: Was any kind of religious instruction a prerequisite for the act of rebaptism?

Yes.

The chair: How long did this religious instruction last? Each according to the
circumstances.
The chair: What does that mean, each according to the circumstances?

Each according to the circumstances means depending on how far they had progressed in
religious instruction.

The chair: Was that the only criterion for conversion to the Catholic faith? Yes.

The chair: The religious instruction thus for those who had progressed badly lasted longer
than for others?

Yes.

The chair: In regard to this rebaptism, did you issue a resolution from the bishops'
conference?

Yes.

The chair: Why did you see yourself obliged to issue this resolution? Because it was
necessary.

The chair: And why did you believe that it was necessary?

To inform everyone what we thought about this matter.

The chair: The resolution is dated 17 November 1941. So it was issued while the
conference of the Croatian Catholic Episcopate was being held?

Yes.

The chair: And you considered it necessary to inform everyone what you were thinking
about this matter? Exactly what did you say?

I cannot remember.

The chair: But nevertheless. Approximately what did you establish?

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

We agreed with the viewpoint of the Church.

The chair: And what was the viewpoint of the Church?

That no one can be accepted by force into the Catholic Church.

The chair: What did you say in this regard?


I do not know exactly.

The chair: Had conversion been conducted in the period before the issuance of this
resolution?

I do not know exactly.

The chair: But what do you suppose? Were they conducted? Probably not.

The chair: In the protocol you state something different. I cannot remember exactly.

The chair: But when the conversion had not yet started, why did you consider it necessary
to establish the principles of rebaptism in a resolution? I see a contradiction there. If the
conversions had not yet begun, then you would not have needed to consider this problem.

(Silence)

The chair: Were you interested in what was happening in the area of your archbishopric
regarding the conversions?

I developed everything through my Ecclesiastic See, through the archbishopric chancery.

The chair: What does that mean? What does it mean that you developed everything
regarding it?

That means that 1 did not make the decisions myself.

The chair: And of course you did not work with it yourself, either? So you knew nothing
about the whole matter yourself; you didn't know anything about the Ustasha crimes and
the other things that happened in connection with the rebaptisms? But I know that that is
not true! At the conference, was a committee formed in this matter?

Yes.

The chair: Who was on this committee? That is listed in the protocol.

The chair: But why should we always read what you stated in the protocol? Answer
personally and explain the connections here. Answer. The chair of the bishops' conference
was you and you were also a member of this committee?

Yes.

The chair: Furthermore, the committee also consisted of Dr. Viktor Buric and Dr. Janko
Simrak?

Yes.
The chair: So it was a three-person committee? Yes.

The chair: What was the name of this three-person committee? It had no name.

The chair: Up until this point in the Catholic Church of Croatia, was it the practice to have
a three-person committee for the purpose of rebaptizing the Serbs?

No.

The chair: And why did this committee exist? So there would be no abuse in this matter.
The chair: Did you achieve this goal? I believe that we kept our conscience clear.

The chair: I did not ask you about your conscience, but whether or not you managed to
prevent abuse.

I believe so.

The chair: Did you bring to task any priest who objected? And did you receive a report
from any of the clergy under you about the number of converted Serbs?

The reports went to the Ecclesiastic See, to the consistorium. The chair: Did you protest
in any cases? When we considered it necessary, then we did.

The chair: Didn't the number of people converting to the Catholic faith seem remarkably
large to you?

There were special circumstances—but the main point is that we kept our conscience
clear.

The chair: What was the criterion that decided the transfer from any faith, regardless
which one, to Catholic belief?

I would prefer not to pursue this matter any further.

The chair: The basic stipulation is the conviction of the correctness of the Catholic faith,
isn't it? Did you really believe that the enormous number

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

of Serbs who in the course of four years had converted to the Catholic faith—and you
claim to have received no reports about this—through Pavelic, and Hitler's usurpation of
power, came to the realization overnight that the Catholic faith was the only true faith?

Mr. chair, I said that I will not defend myself and ultimately answer all these questions. If
you believe that I am guilty, sentence me, please, as you see fit—but my conscience is
clear.
The chair (He addresses himself to the defendant Lisak): I ask you, defendant Lisak, is
your conscience clear in consideration of the crimes that you committed?

Lisak: I fulfilled my patriotic duty and my conscience is clear.

The chair (He turns to Stepinac): You see, defendant Stepinac, Lisak's conscience is also
completely clear. You can see in that that the concept of a clear conscience is a relative
concept—a concept that you cannot operate with before the court.

The public prosecutor: I request that the accused Stepinac be asked whether he listed the
exact number of Serbs forced to convert to the Catholic faith in the report to the pope in
1943. He claims here that he does not know this number. (He addresses Stepinac.) In the
report to the pope, did you mention the exact number of converted Serbs?

What report?

The public prosecutor: We are talking about the report in 1943, your Serb-devouring
report.

Read it yourself.

(Archives of Vladimir Dedijer, Source material on the court process against Alojzije
Stepinac)

Excerpts from the defense speech of the defendant Stepinac on 3 October 1946:

To all the accusations that have been made against me here, I can only answer: My
conscience is completely clear, even if the public laughs about this. I will neither defend
myself nor raise legal protest against the judgment. For my convictions, I will accept not
only derision, disrespect, and humiliation, but, because my conscience is clear, I am also
prepared to die for them.

The expression "the accused Stepinac" has been repeated here a hundred times. But
everyone knows that behind the designation "the accused Stepinac" we understand the
Zagreb archbishop, the Croatian metropolitan, and the representative of the Catholic
Church in Yugoslavia. You yourself have ad-

monished the clergy to ascribe the responsibility for the attitude of the people and of the
clergy to Stepinac alone. The common Stepinac cannot have such influence, only the
archbishop Stepinac.

The battle against me has been going on for 17 months in the press and in the public. Also
I was de facto confined to the archbishop's palace for 12 months.

The rebaptism of the Serbs has been thrown at me as my crime. This, however, is an
incorrect designation, because anyone who is once baptized does not have to be
rebaptized. So we are talking about a change of religion.

I will not go into this any further, but will say only that my conscience is clear. History
will some day judge the matter. The fact is that I had to transfer pastors because their
lives had been threatened by the Orthodox; the Serbs were intending to kill them because
they were delaying the conversions. The fact is that the Church during the war had to
fight with thousands of problems. But it always acted in the interest of the Serbian people
and always pursued the intention of helping them as much as possible. The chair showed
me a letter in which I requested the unoccupied Orthodox cloister in Orehovicar, our
former Pauline cloister, to house the Trapists whom the Germans had driven from
Reichenburg. I considered it my duty to help our Slovene brothers who were expelled by
the Nazis and had to bring them into safety.

The military vicarage has been thrown at me as a severe crime. The chair of the court
asked me whether the treason of Yugoslavia was not clear to me when I took up relations
with the Independent State of Croatia. In the former Yugoslavia, I was already military
vicar and tried to regulate the question of the military vicarage in these eight to nine years
of my activity. But no definitive solution was reached. The problem was finally regulated
in Yugoslavia by the concordat, which came about under great difficulties and was even
ceremoniously ratified in parliament, but was again destroyed by the mobs in the street.

When the war between Yugoslavia and Germany was over, I was obliged to render
spiritual aid to the Catholic soldiers of former Yugoslavia as well as to those of the newly
created Independent State of Croatia. We had to consider the fact that the state was
eliminated, but the army still existed.

Neither for the Germans nor for the Ustashe was I a "persona grata." I was neither
Ustasha nor did I take their oath, as did your officials present here. The Croatian people
decided for the Croatian state, and I would be a monster if I would not feel the pulse of
the Croatian people who were enslaved in the former Yugoslavia. To emphasize again: It
was not possible for the Croatians to be promoted in the army or achieve diplomatic
offices unless they changed their faith or married someone of the other faith. These are
the facts and the background for my pastoral letters and sermons.

What I said about the right of the Croatian people to freedom and independence is in
harmony with the fundamental principles of the allies that were brought up on Yalta and
in the Atlantic Charter. Accordingly,

PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

every people has the right to independence; why should this be prohibited from the
Croatian people alone? The Holy See has often emphasized that even the little people and
the national minorities have the right to freedom. Must the Catholic bishop and
metropolitan keep quiet on the subject? If it must be, we will fall because we did our duty.
If you believe that the Croatian people are satisfied with this fate and you give them the
opportunity to express themselves about it, I will not stand in the way. I have respected
the will of my people, and I will continue to respect it.

You accuse me of being an enemy of the government of the state and of the people. Please
tell me what was my government in the year 1941. Was it that of the putsch instigator
Simovic in Belgrade—the traitor, as you call him—the one in London, the one in
Jerusalem, was it you in the forests or the one in Zagreb? And in the years 1943 and 1944,
was it the government in London or the one in the forests? Only since 8 May 1945 have
you been my government. Was I supposed to obey you guys in the woods and those in
Zagreb? Can one serve two masters at the same time? That corresponds neither to the
Catholic moral nor to international conventions, much less human rights. We were not
able to ignore the government here, even if it was an Ustasha government. Only since 8
May 1945 have you had the right to interrogate me and to hold me responsible.

The chair of the court, Vimpulsek interrupts him: According to that then, we would not be
permitted to judge either Pavelic nor Lisak.

As far as I'm concerned, you neither have proof of any terrorist activity nor will anyone
believe you. Lisak, Lela Sofljanec, and others came to me under false names, and I
received letters that I couldn't even read; if it is my fault that these people came to me, I
will accept the judgment calmly.

I will not reproach myself for the fact that I gave the priest Marie a certificate of safe
passage; my conscience is clear because it was not my intention to do an injustice, and
with a peaceful heart, I could go to the other world with this accusation. Whether you
want to believe me or not is beside the point. The defendant Zagreb archbishop cannot
only suffer for his convictions but even die!

The regime president Dr. Bakaric told the priest Milanovic: "We are convinced that
behind these actions stands the archbishop, but we have no proof This is enough for me.

And then: What is our whole battle about? What is our trouble about? And why has the
situation not calmed down?

The state attorney has confirmed so many times that there is nowhere a greater freedom
of conscience than in this land. So I am taking the freedom to cite a few facts, from which
the opposite will be seen. For the umpteenth time, I explain before all of you: 260 to 270
priests were murdered by the liberation movement. In no other civilized state would such
a large number of priests be punished for such errors as you are insinuating.

You made the fatal mistake of killing these priests. The people will never

excuse you. Our Catholic schools, which were built with such immeasurable sacrifices,
have been confiscated. The work of our priest seminaries has been crippled. And if I had
not gotten material support from America, we would not have been in a position to be
able to begin at all with the work this year.

[...]

The most painful point is the following: No priest and no bishop is sure of his life in these
times, neither day nor night. Bishop Srebrnic was attacked on Susak by youth who were
incited by certain people; they held him for three hours in a room and insulted him. They
undertook further attacks, and your police only watched on. I myself experienced the
same thing in Zapresic. During a confirmation trip, Bishop Lach was held for a whole
night in Koprivnica, and he was not allowed to perform the confirmation. Even your
people from the woods came to me and said: "That is unworthy behavior. We are going to
the government to protest." Bishop Buric had his windows broken out with stones while
he was on a confirmation trip. Bishop Pusic, as I heard recently, was hit with rotten
apples and eggs.

The freedom which you proclaim is nothing more than sham, and we have no desire to be
slaves without rights. We will fight with all legal means for our rights in this state.

As to the other accusations, with which you place us on a level with murderers and
friends of terrorists, I say: Not all crimes in the former Independent State of Croatia were
committed by the state militia and by the Ustashe. It was not easy for the Church to
prevail. It had to battle many difficulties.

[...]

No one should think that I wanted the war. The present government should speak with
the Holy See. The Church knows no dictates and is not opposed to legal pacts. If these
exist, the bishops know very well what their duty is. In such a case, the priests—different
from the case at hand—will address themselves to any blame.

Finally I would like to say a few words about the communist party, my actual accuser.

Anyone who believes that we have taken up our present position out of material reasons
is mistaken, because we are also resolute after we have been reduced. We have no
objections at all that the workers in the factories are getting more rights, because that is
in harmony with the papal encyclical. We also do not object to just reforms. But the
adherents of communism should, if they are allowed to preach and spread materialism,
also allow us to take confessions and to spread our teachings. The Catholics have died for
these rights, and they will continue to suffer a martyr's death for them.

I conclude: With a little good will, one can arrive at an understanding, but the initiative
lies with the present regime! Neither I nor the Episcopate
384 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

are empowered to conclude such a basic pact. Only the state authority and the Holy See
can do this. And as far as I and my court process are concerned: I need no mercy; my
conscience is clear.

(A. Benigar: Alojzije Stepinac, Croatian Cardinal, pp. 582-88.)

Cloisters and Churches as Ustasha Bases

Special correspondent of Tanjug with the unit of the VIII Corps reports in a radio
broadcast on the crimes of the monks from Siroki Brijeg:

In the defeat of the enemy base Siroki Brijeg, the center of the Ustashe and the fascists in
Hercegovina, many documents were discovered that shed light on the criminal activity of
some monks. From the documents it is clear that the monks from Hercegovina were the
most loyal colleagues of the Ustasha and of the occupiers. Franciscans not in the service
of the Ustashe and of the Nazis were rare. For the most part, they committed treason
against their own people, transformed the churches and cloisters into fascist fortresses,
and misused them for the spread of fascist propaganda.

Such a crime center was Siroki Brijeg, from which not only a great number of spiritual
instigators of Ustasha crimes arose, but also many Ustasha murderers. In the cloister and
in the Franciscan school, documents and photographs were confiscated that show this
clearly. In the defeat of this base, luggage belonging to the monks was found in the
cloister that they had prepared for flight with the Germans and the Ustashe. The Ustasha
monks hid along with the German staff in the well fortified electricity central. From this
base, the criminals fought to their last breath. Among the fallen monks were found
considerable sums of money in dollars and in Kuna, as well as Ustasha identification. Six
fallen monks were discovered in their positions in the trenches near the village of
Knezpolie, some kilometers from Siroki Brijeg. Several monks managed to flee along with
the scattered remains of German and Ustasha troops.

Among them was also Pater Berto Dragicevic, an active Ustasha and commandant of the
Ustasha poiice. In the end, he organized the Ustasha police from farmers whom he had
enticed and misled with lies and promises.

385

386 PART IV: THE POPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MASSACRES

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Tanjug report about the monks of Siroki Brijeg.

Cloisters and Churches as Ustasha Bases

387

Also Pater Didart Coric was an Ustasha organizer. In the cloister, a photograph was found
in which he is depicted sitting with Italian soldiers in a tank and with a helmet on his
head. In two other photographs, he can be seen with Ustasha murderers. Pater Coric
organized the Ustasha Youth and held speeches in which he glorified the Ustasha
criminals Jure Francetic and Pave-lic. He was an Ustasha camp director somewhere in
northern Croatia.

Among the monks in Siroki Brijeg, there were active spies for the Gestapo; this was
confirmed by a captured German soldier who was serving as translator. Among these
Gestapo people was also Pater Granic, teacher at the Franciscan school. The cloister
administrator at Siroki Brijeg, Pater Kreso Pandzic, spoke German and along with Pater
Rade Vuksic was constantly in the company of German officers. In the archives of the
cloister, in addition to letters that Pater Oton Knezovic had sent to the murderer Pavelic
in the name of the cloister, were found also the letters that Pater Nikola Ivankovic, pastor
from Jablanica, had sent to the cloister administrator Pater Kreso Pandzic.

In his letter of 2 March 1943, this criminal writes about the battles of the partisans
against the Germans, Italians, Ustashe, and Cetniks near Jablanica: "Privately I learned of
the plans of the partisans and informed the Italian command." Pater Ivankovic from the
village of Predgradje near Ljubuski had been an Ustasha already before 1941 and actively
took part in the Serb massacre and in the battles around Nevesinje.

Many monks were in the service of the Gestapo as active spies and sent spies into the
liberated areas. Thus, for example, in the village Drinovci in Ljubuski county, Milan
Simic, student in the 5th year of the Franciscan school in Siroki Brijeg, was arrested. He
was sent by the monks into his birthplace to spy for the Ustashe. This traitor reported to
the People's Liberation Committee and received a teaching position.

Siroki Brijeg, this breeding place of the Ustasha, in which the monks poisoned the youth
and tried to win the people for Ustasha service, has now been defeated.

(Report by Tanjug, broadcast and published after the liberation of Siroki Brijeg—now
Listice—in heavy battles on the 6th and 7th of February 1945, in which the units of the
26th division of the VIII Corps of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia defeated the
270th regiment of the German 369th legionnaire division and heavy Ustasha militia.)

PART FIVE

THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE EVEN AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE NDH

The Efforts of the Vatican to Save the NDH

At the beginning of 1943, the Vatican began seriously to fear that the fascists would not
win. Italy stood before collapse. The Allies were wielding decisive blows to the Nazi war
machine. In Yugoslavia, the People's Liberation battle was fully kindled. The perspectives
for a new Yugoslavia were becoming more and more clear. Along with other concerns,
those involving the NDH particularly tormented the Vatican. Lobkowicz wrote in a letter
of 18 June 1943 to Lorkovic the following:

Cardinal-State Secretary Maglione expressed his regret to Marcone that one is obliged to
fear the fate of the Croatian state after the war's end.

In another letter of 14 April 1943, Lobkowicz had reported on his conversation with
Montini, who in spite of the critical situation was insistent that the NDH must be
maintained:

He is convinced that Croatia is a bulwark (Montini used the German expression) against
Bolshevism, that the Holy See knows this, and that it is interested in the preservation of
the present eastern borders of Croatia. The Croats could not amalgamate with the Serbs.

This was the view of the two persons closest to the pope at this critical point in time.
Characteristic was also the attitude of Cardinal Pizzardo, one of the most prominent
people in the College of Cardinals and next
391

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

to Pacelli as candidate for the papal chair. Lobkowicz wrote on 10 June 1943:

The cardinal (Pizzardo) sees the present world situation as something fleeting and thinks
that the current map of Europe will see great changes. He further holds the view that the
Croats must be separated from the Serbs in any case. Otherwise, he is most inclined
toward the Danube Confederation as the key to the solution of the problems in central
and southeastern Europe.

Cardinal Marchetti-Selvaggiani, papal governor in the Roman bishopric, was also of this
opinion. Lobkowicz wrote about him:

He showed great interest in our matters and in our questions and he agreed with me in
the question of the Drina border, but he added that he doubted seriously that we would
succeed in this, especially in case that the Allies would win.

(Letter of 10 June 1943)

In the same letter there is also mention of the views of Cardinal Pellegri-nette, the former
nuncio in Belgrade, who spoke about Yugoslavia and the Serbs only in tones full of hate.
Monsignore Felice, likewise former nuncio in Belgrade, also thought the same, and
Cardinal Fumasonik Biondi "expressed his inner desire that God preserve Croatia."

Anyone who knows the Vatican will not assume that the pope and the others only
"desired inwardly" with folded arms or fervently prayed to God that he "preserve Croatia."
But rather, they worked at it in their well known ways.

It is historically proven that Pope Pius XII immediately before the American invasion of
Italy undertook great efforts to save Mussolini's fascist regime by means of a cleverly
negotiated compromise with the United States. The role of Myron Taylor, then personal
ambassador from Roosevelt to the pope, as well as that of the American archbishop (and
later cardinal) Spellman, who was in Rome for this matter, was revealed in various
publications. To the sorrow of the pope, Roosevelt was the one to thwart the plan,
although around him there were also people who wanted fascism to remain in power in
Italy.

Already in 1943, Pius XII realized that Germany and Italy would lose the war. Already
then he began his activities for a peace of compromise. Historically two actions are known
with which the pope was intent upon saving as much as possible of the fascist reactions in
both countries.

Salvemini and La Piana wrote extensively about this in their book La sorte dell' Italia.
They come to the following conclusion: "Fascism, with

or without Mussolini, was to stay in power" (p. 198). The goal was to prevent revolution
and Communism in Italy.

Various solutions were weighed: one saw Grandi, the fascist minister, another saw Ciano,
Mussolini's son-in-law, as the new head of state.

Nowhere else, if we exclude fascist circles, was panic and fear of the direct collapse of
Mussolini greater than in the Vatican. It saw in advance that the Italian people after the
liberation would not forget the Church's co-guilt in the fascist tragedy and would not
forgive her.

(ibid., p. 343)

The American Cardinal Spellman was active as a go-between in Rome in 1943, that is, still
during the war. When he returned to America, Spell-man declared that "the Vatican is
deeply concerned about the social unrest that could arise in Italy after the military defeat"
(New York Times, 12 May 1943). The Pius-Spellman plan saw "a period of time of 10 years
for the political consolidation of Italy," in which the political goal was to be reached—
preventing a Communist revolution. During the time of his diplomatic activity, Spellman
in his own way influenced the revolutionary will of the Italian masses. In June 1943, he
spoke before 25,000 workers in Rome:

Salvation does not lie in revolution! . . . Italy needs the spirit of true solidarity and
brotherliness, which will embrace everyone, the workers and the employers, great and
small. In a word: all classes of the people.

According to his words, revolution destroys "private property and the basis of the family."
The masses should therefore forgive the bloodthirsty fascists so that society and its
conservative make-up can be maintained and Italy can be turned into an Anglo-American
protectorate without difficulty.

Although the original plan did not quite succeed, a portion of what the pope wanted was
realized. Revolution in Italy was not thwarted by the activity of the pope and his Anglo-
American friends, but by the mistakes of the Communist party there. As a result, the pope
succeeded in bringing his Christian Democratic outfit into power. Whereas one entered
into coalitions in the beginning—even with the Communists—the actual goal of gradually
pushing the Communists completely out of power was soon reached. Likewise, essential
elements of fascism were saved—as the pope had wanted.

In reference to German fascism, Pius XII started his rescue plan already in 1943. In July
of 1943, the Spanish magazine Informaciones wrote

394 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE


that the pope was warning of the danger "that would arise if the demand of Germany's
unconditonal capitulation would be accepted." The Reuter news agency reported on 23
July 1943 from Rome that the Vatican wanted to assume the role of go-between in the
peace talks between the Allies and Germany.

The magazine Newsweek published in August 1943 "from well informed sources" in
London the news that the pope was working on a peace of compromise with Germany. At
the same time, a group of former Catholic priests in England in their magazine Converted
Catholics accused the pope of wanting to save Nazi rule from collapse under the guise of
neutrality. And, indeed, still while he was "working at peace," Pius XII sent Hitler a
cordial telegram in which he congratulated him that the attack on his life was not
successful.

Following the pope's directives, the American bishops, who had sabotaged the efforts to
destroy fascism all during the war, then formed a "Committee for the Propagation of
Peace Plans," that is, for the rescue of Hitler and Nazi fascism.

But the pope still had other wishes and intentions. In one of his last interviews, Jan
Masaryk reported to the American magazine The Protestant: "There is proof that the
Vatican during the war had the intention of uniting the German military with the
Americans in a common effort against the Soviet Union." But Roosevelt lived too long, . . .
All that did not bring the results that the pope wanted, but his participation in efforts to
see that Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy were never quite liquidated and today
are again gaining territory is nevertheless not minute. Related to these intentions from
the pope, arose also the project of a Croatian state with the Drina as border.

The fact that Spellman at the time of his stay in Rome in 1943 was in contact with the
Ustasha representatives, the fact that the Ustasha deputies conducted conversations with
him—upon instructions from the Vatican—is a sure fact that is proven through
documents. Croatia was only a building block in a comprehensive plan that probably did
not differ from the one that Cardinal Pizzardo rewrote as the "Danube Confederation."

The fact that the Vatican already at that time intended to set up a Catholic monarchy in
Austria again with Otto von Habsburg at its head is also proof. To rescue all of Hitler
Germany seemed to the pope to be impossible and perhaps also undesirable. He surely
reckoned with a division of Hitler Germany and in his plans he also considered Catholic
Bavaria along with Austria.

The pope even let his thoughts lead him to uniting these two countries. They were to
form the nucleus of a Catholic state block to which Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Slovenia,
and Croatia were to belong also. It

is no secret that the Vatican was still mourning the Habsburg monarch. The Austrian
empire was the bulwark of Catholicism in central Europe, the only empire in which the
Church had substantial rights and in which the state promoted and favored religion
actively. The Holy See saw the reestablishment of the Habsburg empire as a necessary
barrier against the spread of Protestantism from the north, of Communism from the east,
and of Orthodoxy from the south.

From the viewpoint of Catholic interests, that was a vital task; the plan, however, could
not be realized; Roosevelt ultimately stood in the way.

But it is indisputable that the Vatican in 1943 tried to solve the problem of the Catholic
monarchy for Austria with the cooperation of America and that in doing so it had also
brought up the Croatian question. It is also known that the pope later, when Rome was
already occupied by the Allies, continued with even greater vehemence with the Allies its
efforts to reorganize central and southern Europe according to its interests. In the great
trials against the Ustasha war criminals in Zagreb and in the detailed research on the
activity of the Church, the connections between these plans and the behavior of the
Vatican in Croatia were clear. Specifically, the Vatican—with the help of Archbishop
Stepinac—had tried to make it easier for the Allies to intervene in the "rescue of Croatia"
through the transformation of the Ustasha state into a pseudo-democratic system, i.e., to
effect the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Allies at least up to the Drina.

But the Vatican was not successful in this. But from the directives that it gave to its
subservient organs in Croatia, it must be concluded that the Vatican as well as the
Croatian clergy up to the last moment, up to the day of liberation, believed that these
plans would be realized.

So it was not only the fanaticism of Stepinac, who explained why he so steadfastly stuck
to the rescue of the Ustasha state at a time when it was clear to everyone that the
liquidation of Ustashadom was imminent and unavoidable. Only the pope's directive
could have brought him to speak so totally for the rescue of the NDH.

The conclusions from Yalta and the obligations that Roosevelt had assumed could,
however, not be so easily neglected, and in the final analysis the positive powers on this
side won out. In the end, to be sure, the power of the People's Liberation Army is to be
thanked for the fact that all the efforts failed to establish a situation in the western
Balkans that was favorable to the pope.

But it is certain that the Vatican, through negotiations by Archbishop Spellman at the
beginning of 1943, also plied the government of the United States to save the NDH.

From the report of the "extraordinary representative of the NDH in

396 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

Rome," Lobkowicz, on 6 March 1943, it can be seen how Spellman saw the NDH:
In New York, I had the opportunity to visit Archbishop Spellman in the company of his
secretary Wurster: The archbishop, as you know, was in Rome for about two weeks.
Numerous rumors arose concerning the significance of this visit and his person. After my
encounter with him, I see the following facts as absolutely certain:

Spellman was already before his appointment to the office of Archbishop of New York a
political personality, specifically an official of the Vatican state secretariat under the
present pope, the then state secretary Pa-celli. He was Pacelli's confidant, traveled a lot,
and established a lot of connections. As a cosmopolitan person, he was the first and
probably the only Catholic bishop to get a pilot's license and piloted a passenger plane in
Alaska during an inspection trip. In his time, the press all over the world wrote about the
"flying bishop."

Now he is the confidant of President Roosevelt, who sees in him the most prominent
representative of North American Catholicism, especially since he was a former coworker
of the present pope. Spellman is simultaneously the military vicar for the Catholic
soldiers in the American army.

On his trip to Rome, he spent three hours in Madrid in conversation with the Caudillo.
The Spanish ambassador promised to get me detailed information about this meeting.

During his stay in Rome, he was received by the pope in four long audiences. No one
knows what they talked about.—As you know, there are things that the pope does not
entrust even to the Cardinal State Secretary himself, as was also the case with the visit
from Taylor.

Spellman explained again to the local personages that his trip was of a strictly Church
nature and that there was no political background for it.

The Italian government behaved very obligingly toward him. The personal guard was left
to the Vatican police. Only upon crossing the city, was he accompanied by an Italian
police car. He lived outside the Vatican in Gianicolo, the extraterritorial area of the papal
college "De Propaganda Fide" is the building of the North American Institute.

My audience with Spellman came about through negotiations of the local American
canon, member of the Liberian Chapter, whom I have known for some years and who
lives constantly in Rome, after I had conferred with the ambassador S. Peric.

Spellman's secretary himself called me and arranged a meeting for Tuesday, the 8th of
March at 8:30. We met at the agreed time in his residence. While we were waiting, the
secretary was able to look through the calling cards that were lying on the table and
convinced himself that among them were the calling cards of numerous Italian
dignitaries—for example that of the head of the appellate court, several senators, etc.
Even two ministers from the present cabinet are to have visited him.
I gave him my calling card. While we were waiting, we heard the word "Croatia" in a lively
conversation in his room.

Spellman received us with extraordinary courtesy and said immediately: "You can't tell
me much new about your matters. I am well informed on everything and know the
Croatian problem well. Some years ago, I traveled in your country and just the diffrence
between Belgrade and Semmon, not to mention Zagreb, told me enough: these are two
different worlds! They don't belong together."

We agreed that the present Croatian state was an important bulwark of Catholicism and
of the west against the east and that the Drina border represents the guarantee for the
preservation of the Catholic position in this area. A reestablishment of Yugoslavia would
mean not only the destruction of the Croatian people but also of Catholicism in this area.
Instead of a border of the west at the Drina, we would then have the borders of Byzan-
tinism at the Karawankas.

Spellman agreed with these explanations and added that President Roosevelt was for the
freedom of all peoples and the Croats were no exception. He also said that he personally
wanted to do everything in his power for us, but that we, however, had numerous
enemies and one cannot do much against many. He said he was very pleased with the
Croats in his bishopric, the priesthood as well as the faithful. He emphasized again that
he was very well informed about us, partially by the secretary of the Zagreb archbishop
Dr. Lackovicz, who had also visited him.

We presented to him the gray book and our last copy of the Ustasha principles in Latin.
He leafed through it with interest and asked: "Does President Roosevelt have it?" We
replied that that is probably not the case. Then he recommended forwarding a copy to
Tittman, Roosevelt's permanent ambassador in the Vatican. We replied that our state was
in a war with the United States and it was therefore impossible to pursue such
relationships; and especially because of our being Croatian Catholics, we had addressed
him as the Catholic bishop whose concern was known to many of our emigrants. He
accepted this with complete understanding. His attitude told us that he was intending to
deliver the gray book and the Ustasha principles to President Roosevelt.

Since we were pressed for time in order to get to the farewell audience with the Holy
Father, our visit had to be ended. He accompanied us to the car, helped us personally into
our coats, and was overall more than cordial. He regretted that he could not spend more
time with us. Upon our departure, he said in English: "God bless Croatia!"

This letter documents the fact that Spellman was quite well informed about the
conditions in the Ustasha state and conveyed great sympathies to the Croatian fascists.
That means that he got precisely the same impression in the Vatican that the Ustashe
gave him. Also for him, Yugoslavia was a danger for Catholicism and for western
civilization just as
PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

it was for the most avid Ustasha! He, too, spoke of Byzantium! Like the other Roman
cardinals, he, too, was enthusiastic about the Ustasha principles.

But although he wanted to rescue the NDH according to papal wishes, it can be seen from
Lobkowicz's words that he was not very confident ("We have numerous enemies. . . .").

This report from Lobkowicz also shows that Spellman had contact with the fascist
government in the midst of the war. With his desire to help fascism in an already rather
difficult and critical situation, he was fully on the papal course.

We have seen how in 1942 Archbishop Stepinac in Rome during his papal visit made
headway for Pavelic and the Ustasha state and that the Ustashe were especially
enthusiastic about him because of it. In May of 1943, Stepinac was in Rome again. This
time he came with the expressed purpose of firming up the position of the NDH and to
prepare the Vatican for action in case any changes of international character were to come
about. Even Stepinac was under the impression of an outcome unfavorable to fascism and
to Ustashadom. That is why he gave the pope a memorandum in which the main point
was the fervent request for the pope to spare nothing to assure the continuation of the
NDH. In this memorandum (of 18 May 1943), Stepinac was operating especially with the
fact that the Ifstasha state had been of service in the mass conversion of the Serbs, so that
the base of the Catholic Church had been increased by it. The fall of the NDH would bring
about the loss of these masses of new followers gained by force. At this place, Stepinac
said the following:

As you are bringing peace to the world, Holy Father, think also of the Croatian nation
which has always been true to Christ and to you. The young Croatian state, which over a
period of time of several centuries came into being under more terrible and more difficult
circumstances than any other state and which has fought despairingly for its existence,
thereby shows that it desires to remain true to his Catholic tradition under all
circumstances and wishes better to secure more clearly the influence of the Catholic
Church in this part of the globe. In the case of a defeat or of its diminution, thousands of
Croatian faithful and priests would willingly and gladly sacrifice their lives to prevent this
happening. Not only would those approximately 240,000 people converted from Serb
Orthodoxy be lost, but also the whole Catholic population of many areas with all their
churches and their cloisters.

Stepinac thus reveals that up to the middle of 1943 no less that 240,000 Serb Orthodox
were converted by force! He operated with this overwhelming number before the pope as
with a positive and brilliant result and emphasized

that this great success, which surely pleased the pope, too, would be ruined if the NDH
were to perish! Is this not yet another proof for the fact that the pope was directly
responsible for the mass conversions in Croatia, i.e., also for what followed the
conversion?! This memorandum also contains the following text:

Following the nature of the matter, and in case God does not have a great miracle in
mind, the success of Catholicism is closely bound with the success of the Croatian state;
the existence of Catholicism is coupled with the existence of the state. The salvation of
the state is the salvation of Catholicism, Holy Father.! As I believe firmly in divine grace
and providence, whose chosen one you are, I commend the independent State of Croatia
to your divine care and your prayers in the conviction that I am at the same time to the
best of my abilities commending the holy faith in my homeland and in the Balkan.

Again: The Church cannot get along without the Ustasha state and the state cannot get
along without the Church. It must be noted that Stepinac does not limit the matter to
Croatia but he is playing on the interests of the Church in the whole Balkan! That means
that he was likewise of the opinion that the Ustasha state was only the starting point for
an offensive and the expansion of its territory in the remaining Balkan.

When Stepinac returned from Rome, his paper Katolicki list (Nr. 23, 1943) announced
that the pope had blessed the priesthood and Ustasha Croatia. The archbishop published
in the paper a letter in which he

announces to the faithful that the Holy Father Pius XII upon my [Stepi-nac's, author's
note] official visit sends through me to his faithful in the archbishopric of Zagreb and in
Croatia his cordial and paternal blessing and is asking the dear Lord for help for us and
our homeland.

Lobkowicz reported on 10 June 1943 enthusiastically on Stepinac's effect in the Vatican.


He continues to say that upon this occasion even the papal legate in Zagreb, Marcone, was
in Rome (in order to support Stepinac), and that Marcone told him that Stepinac:

had reported positively about Croatia in the Vatican. It can be seen that the Vatican is still
well disposed toward Croatia. It is said that in the Vatican Archbishop Stepinac was
advised to try to strive for the most cordial relationship possible with the Croatian state
authorities.

It is significant that Stepinac was given such advice at the same time that they were
working to more closely unite Ustashadom with the Croa-

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

tian Farmers Party for tactical reasons—in regard to the outcome of the war. Of greatest
concern to the Vatican was Ustashadom with Pavelic at its head. Lobkowicz wrote further:
"The archbishop said that he could see a distinct difference in the attitude of the Vatican
in regard to the Croatian state a year ago and today. He discerned a basic improvement in
every respect."
That means: An even better attitude than the earlier one—which was good! In the
following, we want to show the unusual way in which Stepi-nac spoke for Ustashadom to
the pope and his following in the Vatican: "He raised especially," so says Lobkowicz, "our
laws against the crime of abortion, which would be very much welcomed in the Vatican."

It is interesting that the Vatican was so much concerned with this problem, while the fact
that the Ustasha were slaughtering thousands upon thousands of people did not cause it
the slightest concern. Lobkowicz continues: "On the basis of these laws, the archbishop
partially justifed also the tactics against the Jews, who in our country are the greatest
advocates of such a crime." (i.e., of abortion).

The matter could not be clearer. Even if only "partially," the persecution of the Jews by
the Ustasha is forgiven! This document deserves special attention and we can count these
few lines among the most condemning documentation.

There is no doubt that the pope at this occasion gave Stepinac the guarantee or at least a
firm promise that he would proceed according to the wishes of his memorandum and that
he would intervene for the NDH under all possible circumstances, so that the NDH would
not disappear from the picture at the end of the war. The blessing of the pope and his
promise was quite justifiably interpreted by the Ustasha to mean that the pope was
praying for their "homeland."

At precisely that time (2 May 1943) the organ of the bishopric Sarajevo, Katolicki tjednik,
wrote about the visit of the papal legate Abbot Marcone in Bosnia and in Hercegovina and
emphasized that he "is very amicably and very properly concerned about the welfare of
the Croatian people. He reflects only loyally the thoughts and the feelings of Pius Xll, and
we have always known that the popes were the greatest friends of the Croats and of
Croatia."

There is no doubt that the archbishop knew precisely how the pope was thinking and
what he had in mind to do for the NDH. At that time, Marcone visited the representatives
of the Ustasha regime in Mostar and the Ustasha military commandant and held agitating
speeches against the partisans. Katolicki tjednik on 23 May 1943 wrote extensively about
this and told that the legate emphasized "that the Holy Father was follow-

ing with the greatest love and sympathy the development and the welfare of the small but
loyal Croatian people. ..."

The paper writes further that the papal legate:

conversed especially long with our Ustasha representatives. He brought cordial greetings
from the Holy Father and wanted to hear everything that was worrying the Croatian
people. He emphasized that the Holy Father was very much interested in the conditions
and the life of the Croatian people.
There is no doubt that the papal legate completely identified the Ustasha criminals with
the Croatian state and the Croatian people, and that the pope considered it necessary to
support the Ustashe and to eliminate whatever was "worrying" them. In actuality, this
was directed against the interests and the longings of the people, which had long fought
against the Ustashe.

In one of the preceding chapters, we spoke of the special audience that the pope granted
to the Ustasha minister David Sincic on 9 May 1943, as well as what Sincic reported to the
Ustasha foreign ministry about the course of the audience. We remember how he
emphasized the ceremonial character of the audience and repeated what the pope said
about Pavelic and the NDH. But the report by Sincic was nevertheless more of a formal
character, and he did not expose everything in it that he talked about with the pope. He
had made this report more upon the request of the Ustasha authority in the Vatican,
Lobkowicz, who according to protocol sent it to Lorkovic—along with his own regular
report. But it became known that Sincic had more extensive talks with the pope.

In a trial of a group of war criminals in Zagreb in May and July 1947, Sincic appeared as a
witness (he was condemned as a war criminal in another trial) and told everything that he
knew about the plans to save the NDH with the help of the relationships with the Vatican
and the western allies, and finally he also told of the goal of his trip to Rome and his visit
with the pope.

During the hearing before the court on 2 June 1947, Sincic said the following:

I described to him our situation under the double occupation. Then we came to speak of
the international situation. I complained to the pope about the Italian army and asked
him to intervene because at that time I was leading the action for the liberation of our
people interned in Italy, which was getting nowhere. But I was still successful in actually
getting them out of the camp before the Germans came. While we were discussing the
world situation, we came to speak of Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia, and the pope

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

told me: "Italy will soon find a way to get out of the war, and the Italian people will soon
make a contribution toward peace in the world. Italy is seeking and will find the way. I am
working on it. Also elsewhere there is work on it." In this connection, the pope was
especially interested in Macek and the Croatian Farmers Party. He was of the opinion that
the situation in Croatia could be changed by this party.

Then he spoke about the communist danger that was threatening the world, and about
how the question of Croatia and the other states could be regulated. Croatia was to play
an important role in this. In Italy itself, the authorities would seek their own way toward
their salvation, because they saw the danger of communism and also the futility of the
war that Germany was conducting. "I believe," continued the pope, "that the German
people should also do this, but it is especially necessary that the people of the Balkan do
it. I am happy that recently General Antonesco from Rumania was here, who told me in
conversation that also in the Balkan and in the rest of the world there is a desire to
proceed this way. I am also working for this."

From this conversation between Sincic and the pope, it is clear that the pope was having
an effect on the Ustashe so that they, too, would align themselves with the Croatian
Farmers Party. By playing on the Italian fascists and on the fascist collaborator
Antonesco, he was recommending to the Ustashe to save themselves by any sort of
subterfuge, or to come across positively to the allies. In the same conversation, the pope
asked about Pavelic, sent his greetings, and expressed the desire to see him again.
Undoubtedly, the pope had also employed the American Archbishop Spellman only to
influence the allies.

Later Sincic told the court that he had made an "oral report" in Zagreb about the visit with
the pope.

They happily agreed with me, asked me to continue my work in building even more
contacts and asked me to stay in Italy until the expected events would occur, because this
was the beginnings of my contacts with the Vatican. . . . Stepinac was satisfied with this
development. He wanted to influence the poglavnik in order to make it possible for the
Farmers Party to work among the people, so that it would become stronger. He was of the
opinion that after the victory of the allies, they would take over the power in Croatia.
Stepinac said that even if the English had not yet won in Italy, they would by 1944, and
therefore he wanted to do everything to save Croatia.

But, as is known, things developed differently. Nevertheless, we must note how and why
the pope worked for the salvation of the Ustasha state and how he was intending to
proceed in the matter.

In the same trial, Marcic appeared as witness. He had been involved in Germany in an
action to rescue the Ustasha state. Marcic testified the following:

It is clear that behind this plan stood the Vatican, who supported it because it presented
only advantages for the Vatican in every respect: On the one hand, a barrier was created
against the USSR, on the other hand, the freedom to negotiate was maintained, even if it
did not lead immediately to the desired Danube Confederation.

Marcic, too, was in touch with Stepinac:

I returned to Zagreb and described the situation to Stepinac in a lengthy discussion. He,
too, was enthusiastic about this solution, because he as archbishop is a man of the
Vatican who cannot deal otherwise and cannot think other than along the directives that
he receives.

According to the testimony from Simic as well as that of Marcic, both of whom were
active as Ustasha ambassadors and were initiated into the plans, it was a matter of the
destruction of Yugoslavia or of the rescue of the reactionary fascist structure that was the
NDH. This happened with the perspective that Croatia was to be a part of a Danube
Confederation or that a block of Catholic states in central Europe was to be formed under
the direct control of the Vatican.

That was the middle of 1943 shortly before the capitulation of Italy. Since no advance by
the allies over Italy or on other paths in the direction of the Balkan could be expected, the
Ustasha continued the old course. Up to the end, they maintained the firm belief that the
pope would stay with the familiar viewpoint and would save the NDH in any case. The
cordial relationships between the Vatican and Pavelic would continue.

For a grand pilgrimage in Marija Bistrica in July 1944, Stepinac held a sermon that was
even more remarkable since everyone had to know that the defeat of fascism was at hand.

The main Ustasha newspaper Hrvastski narod on 23 July 1944 carried a one-page report
with the title "The first Prelate of Croatia," which was supplied with a picture that showed
the archbishop in ceremonial vestments alongside Pavelic. The paper referred to Stepinac
as the "prime nobleman of the kingdom" and compared him to that ecclesiastical honor
bearer who in the middle ages had stood in the foremost position in the retinue of
Croatian kings, i.e., it awarded him this position in the retinue of Pavelic. The Ustasha
paper commented on the sermon in Marija Bistrica as follows:

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

It is probably no accident that His Eminence Stepinac chose this great holy shrine of
Croatian Catholicism to exercise his office. He came not only as shepherd of souls or to
speak about the great religious and moral dangers and tasks of our tragic times, but also
as the first prelate of Croatia. In this function, he has taken a position on the existential
questions of his people and has expressed his views with words out of which was
speaking the whole authority of the archbishopric office and of the first Catholic honor
bearer in the Croatian state.

Stepinac used the opportunity to speak about the war and the Ustasha state, which the
mother of God would protect and save:

If the war opponents who cloak our land in horrors see it as a crime that the Croatian
people, who have longed for freedom with all their power and with their whole hearts for
centuries, today defend their state independence with incredible sacrifices, then all the
other peoples would also be criminals who also bear such an unwavering longing for
freedom and independence. No one is to doubt the fact that the Croats will never abandon
their rights. Our plea to the mother of God from Bistrica is: "Help us! Today, when the
world is crumbling and a flood of destructive views floods the soul, help the Croatian
people to remain true to their Catholic past. For two decades, the communist philosophy
has been urged upon the world. The Croatian people has up to now resisted it. Help us
that they will continue to resist in the future. . . ."

The archbishop referred to the conditions that the occupying powers and the Ustasha had
created in Croatia as the goal for which all fighters for freedom and independence had
longed in the history of Croatia. The allies and the people's liberation movement, which
ultimately brought freedom to the Croatian people, were sentenced by the archbishop and
he referred to them as war criminals!

The newspaper of the Ustasha movement, Hrvastski narod, thrust this sermon by the
Zagreb archbishop in Marija Bistrica into the proper light and wrote:

That is an attitude true to the principles of the Croatian people's right to their own state.
When these words come from the mouth of the Zagreb archbishop, then they are not only
words in the name of human laws but through them the eternal weight of divine right is
cast into the balance in favor of the Croatian battle for their own state.

Since he knew the power of such a statement, the bishop added: No one should doubt that
the Croats would ever relinquish their right. You could

not deny this about the Croatian people, not even in the states that were fighting on the
other side in the war for allegedly the same goal, national self-determination of the
peoples.

Through this statement, the Catholic Church in Croatia again put words into the mouth of
its highest honor bearer concerning the Croatian people's position regarding the fight that
is being fought in the name of divine and human rights.

The Nazis' official news agency made a lot of publicity for this sermon. For this reason,
Radio London reacted to the statements of Archbishop Stepinac as follows:

The allied pilots do not machine-gun the population of a single occupied country that is
fighting for its freedom. They shoot only at military installations of the Germans and the
Ustashe.

[The archbishop, on the other hand, had instilled fear into the procession by maintaining
they would be attacked from the air with machine guns. . . .]

Only the Germans and their lackeys can claim that the allies perform bestialities. Only
the Ustashe can claim that the Croatian people under their rule are defending freedom
and independence, because they themselves are neither free nor independent. The allies
will force communist ideology onto no country, not even Croatia. The policy of the allies
is expressed in one sentence: The people will decide on their government themselves. In
regard to the very delicate and sharp statements that the German news agency ascribes to
Dr. Stepinac, he himself must attest to whether the German propaganda is telling a lie.
Otherwise it is clear that Archbishop Dr. Stepinac has now publicly added his name to the
list of his Nazi and Ustasha protectors, and that means that he is an enemy of the allies.

But it was not concocted German propaganda, and the archbishop had nothing to deny. To
the contrary, he confirmed his performance at Ma-rija Bisirica in the newspaper Katolicki
list on 13 July 1944 with a decisive position in favor of the NDH. He especially
emphasized the necessity of awakening in the people a trust in the free Croatian state,
this state of the thousand-year struggle for freedom, independence, and for the right to
national self-determination, which, he says, has finally been achieved in this war.

Katolicki list writes literally:

What does its national state mean to the people? Our national Croatian sons see in it the
highest power and authority. They are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood; they feel
in the same spirit in which the people

406 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

also feel. It must therefore be made clear to the people that those in power are their
proper friends, that they want and do good for them. The people must learn to value and
revere their government properly and to work with it as closely as possible. One of the
most important and greatest, but also one of the most difficult tasks is now to transfer
this national organism from the traditional spirit of opposition into the spirit of
cooperation with the government. The people already recognize and will see much more
clearly in the future that all laws levied by the peoples' state are only for the good of the
people. The people feel it now already, and when the situation calms down, it will feel
even stronger and more clearly that the money of the people is spent only for its own
good.

That was clear language: the Croatian episcopate with its archbishop at the head put the
whole authority of the Church into the service of the Ustasha state in order to weaken the
hatred and the mistrust of the people for this monstrous structure. The Church used its
pulpits to deceive the people and to convince them that the Ustasha criminals had only
their good in mind. The Church admonished the people to love and to revere these
criminals, to obey their terrible laws, and to give them their money.

It is surely unnecessary to point out the relationships between the Croatian episcopate
and the Vatican at that time. The bishops could not have behaved this way if this had not
coincided with the will of the Vatican. The episcopate informed the Vatican about the
events in the NDH and about the peoples' liberation struggle and received directives from
the Vatican.
In Hrvastski narod there was the following on 23 July 1944:

"I am an unshakeable optimist in regard to the future of the Croatian people," said His
Eminence, the Archbishop Dr. Stepinac, recently as he once again had the grace to receive
us again in his historical residence. Since we know him, we know that it is primarily the
consciousness of the justice of the battle of the Croatian people that makes him so
optimistic. We also know—and we derive this from the conversation with him and his
closest colleagues—that he makes every effort to contribute with his deeds to our being
able to look to the future with hope.

On his frequent travels to the Vatican, the Zagreb archbishop always appeared as a worthy
prelate of his state. He never missed the chance to be the first to celebrate the holy mass
for a happy end to the struggle of the Croats at the grave of Saint Peter, and no less to
state his position in favor of the rights of the Croatian people before the head of the
Catholic Church, one of the greatest authorities in today's world, by informing the curia
about the real situation in Croatia.

Although the Vatican diplomacy had not yet recognized the Croatian state de jure, the
Zagreb archbishop managed that the Holy See show be-

fore the whole world how dear the Croatian state is to it by establishing de facto contact
with the Croatian government through its legate. Visibly moved, the archbishop assured
us of the Vatican's support. The Holy See today is directly informed about the situation in
Croatia, about the will, the efforts, and the rights of the Croatian people, said the
archbishop. And it is probably related to the Roman experiences, which strengthen his
belief in the victory of justice, when His Eminence again in all seriousness and in all
confidence says: "I am an unshakeable optimist."

We still remember his words when he graciously told us: "The Croats will remain their
own lords, I am sure of that." And his coworkers told us at the final handshake that no
one would feel for the Croatian people and for the Croatian state as much as he!

And that is the first prelate of Croatia.

All this confirms what we have said in this chapter: to help the Ustasha state and to
solidify the familiar role of the priesthood, which was steadfastly on the Ustasha course,
that was the Vatican's policy! And it bears the responsibility for this.

The events, however, developed differently from what the Vatican had imagined. The
promises it gave to the episcopate in Croatia and the Us-tashe were not fulfilled. True to
the Vatican directives, Archbishop Stepi-nac was still trying at the last moment, i.e.,
directly before the liberation of Zagreb at the beginning of May 1945, to influence the
course of events and in doing so became a central political figure. The bishops' conference
was called to order, new memoranda were formulated and sent to the Vatican, and in
order to establish relations with the allies, a federation was formed with the Slovene
bishop and collaborator Rozman. But everything was in vain. The allies came and Pavelic
had to flee the land with the Ustashe.

There was nothing left for the Vatican but to adapt to the new situation. However, it was
successful in rescuing Pavelic's life and a great number of criminals among his associates,
who were able to hide in cloisters and even in the Vatican. The Vatican became a center of
Ustasha emigrants. It took care of the criminals; it organized their release from the camp,
and brought them as "official" travelers to various countries of South America. The
director of the undertaking was the priest Krunoslav Draganovic, who along with Pavelic
rose to be the most important man of the Ustashe. He had his headquarters directly in the
Vatican and from there prepared a new terrorist action: groups of saboteurs were slipped
into Yugoslavia and a spy service was organized. The plan, however, blew up and ended
with a big trial in Zagreb in the months of July and August 1948. In this trial, the
Vatican's old and new ties with the Ustashe were

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

uncovered and those responsible were identified. The following is a report based on the
material from this trial.

It is well known that a great number of deeply involved priests and some bishops fled the
country along with the Ustasha criminals—for example, the archbishop of Sarajevo, Dr.
Iwan Saric, and the bishop of Banja Luka, Garic. The infamous collaborator and war
criminal Bishop Roz-man fled from Slovenia. They all found refuge at first in Austrian
cloisters, until the beginning of 1948 when they saw another solution. During the trial in
Zagreb, among other things, all the above-mentioned people were named in connection
with new conspiracies against Yugoslavia.

The accused Milos testified against them. This murderer of many thousands of people,
slaughterer in the Jasenovac camp, trafficked with these bishops and negotiated with
them about plans for the future. Milos reported on one meeting in the archbishopric of
Celovac, where they discussed the Danube confederation:

The prince bishop of Salzburg started the ball rolling. I do not remember his name. In
addition to him, some German functionaries took part; from Slovenia there was Bishop
Rozman and several Slovenes, then Archbishop Saric and, I believe, the Ustasha minister
Balen. It was their goal to create a corporation that would work at transforming the
Danube confederation into fact.

This confederation was to consist of a collection of Catholic countries: Hungary, Slovenia,


Austria, and possibly later the Czechs would join. . . . Once in the conversation with Sucic
(Ustasha minister), I heard that Pave-lic sanctioned this action to form a Danube
confederation, but he did not speak about details.
Also the accused Kavran reported in the trial about this meeting:

I was not present, but I remember that Sucic told me about it. That was in the middle of
or at the end of 1945, I don't know exactly any more. One day Sucic came to Celovac; he
visited Archbishop Saric and met several ministers there who were staying in Celovac.

Kavran confirmed that the Ustasha ministers Susie, Dumandzic, and Balen as well as the
Ustasha deputy of the military vicar, Cecelja, were present.

Cecelja came along with an Austrian priest, and when he saw them gathered, he said that
he had come because of a very important matter about which we wished to speak. He told
briefly that a paper had to be composed from which one could deduce the power, the
strength, and the possibilities that a free Croatian state could offer. A second paper would
have to be

added to this one that was to be taken to Rome in the next few days. ... At this moment in
Rome, the Cardinals' Consistorium was being prepared. The Viennese cardinal Innitzer
was to be present and the papers were to be delivered. Later it became known that a plan
for the formation of the Danube confederation was being made, which Croatia was to join
and for the execution of this plan, certain papers were necessary. Since the matter was
being taken up with rather short notice, it could not be solved immediately, and nothing
was formulated.

The Zagreb trial revealed the far-reaching activities of the Catholic Church in cooperation
with the Ustasha criminals. These activities stretched from the most common crimes
through terrorist actions to plans of the highest rank. All levels of the hierarchy, from the
little monk up to the cardinal, participated. The deep hatred for Yugoslavia united them
all. It is characteristic that the murderer Milos was drawn into the Vatican's plans and
took part in the discussions with the bishops. Milos testified in the trial that he was a
friend of Archbishop Salic and of Bishop Garic, whom he knew "from earlier," i.e., from
the times when he was slaughtering thousands of people in Jasenovac.

High Vatican honor bearers supported the Ustasha criminals with word and deed at the
time of their imprisonment. Among them, Cardinal Ruf-fini was especially prominent. He
visited the prisons, encouraged the criminals, held speeches for them, in which he
emphasized that their continuing struggle was justified and that they would win and
return to their lands. In the Zagreb trial, a visit from Cardinal Ruffini to the prison was
mentioned several times.

During his hearing, there was a confession by the criminal Kustro, mass murderer and
later terrorist slipped into Yugoslavia, who was in the Fermo camp from July 1944 to
November 1946:

I am aware that at that time Church honor bearers visited the camp: the archbishop of
Fermo, I don't know his name, a cardinal [Ruffini, translator's note], Dr. Draganovic and
once Dr. Dominik Mandic. When the archbishop came, he held a sermon in the church
and as far as I can remember, he once spoke before the prisoners. The cardinal was
greeted by Professor Zanko at the entrance to the camp and returned his greeting. In his
sermons, he emphasized that there would be a reestablishment of the NDH.

Also the accused criminal Rosandic reported on Cardinal Ruffmi's visit to the Fermo
camp:

The preparations for Cardinal Ruffini's visit to the camp were intensive. Not only the
camp commandant but also the whole personnel were busying about,

410 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

even the major, and everyone was full of expectation. It was a ceremonious reception.
Cardinal Ruffini arrived with several priests, among them Dr. Mandic, responsible for the
financing of the cloister and who had distributed a lot of money to the emigrants.
Cardinal Ruffini held a speech in which he emphasized that the Vatican knew quite well
who the Croats were, that they were among the best fighters against miscreants, and that
they got the honorary title of "Bulwark of Christianity," because they had proven that
even for the future they were the best fighters against a renewed attack from miscreants.
He assured everyone that their future was assured because it was known of the Croats
that they wanted to have their state back and also that they would get it. That was the
essence of the speech.

It had such a resounding effect that this visit from Cardinal Ruffini to the refugees in the
Fermo camp solidified the position of Draganovic, Zan-ko, and the other Ustashe, who
now felt themselves bolstered. This became clear in their statements: "Here we see that
they were looking after us, and we were thinking that we were forgotten."

This speech also increased the Ustashe's desire to fight and they had gotten a new thrust
from it.

During the trial in Zagreb, the accused Kavran testified that a book had been printed for
the information of the cardinal and the other high clergy; the book had the title
Martyrium croatiae (Author: Professor Ba-reza), and all cardinals and bishops got it.

In the course of the investigation, the accused engineer Petracic gave the following
protocol about the ties between the Ustashe and the Vatican:

Professor Zanko with the help of the priest Draganovic in Rome entertained ties with the
Vatican for the Fermo camp; Draganovic represented the imprisoned Ustasha
functionaries' main ties with the Vatican. Draganovic regularly visited the civilian and
military camps of the Ustasha prisoners. He therefore must have been in possession of a
special permission from the authorities. Through Draganovic, we also got to the pope
himself and to some of his representatives in the Vatican. The Vatican supported us
financially and through Dr. Mandic, the chief treasurer of the Institute of Saint
Hieronymus, we got rather large sums of money.

After the war, Pius XII showed that in regard to the Ustasha he wanted to continue the
course from the period before the war.—Draganovic himself was not present in the trial.
For this reason, there were no further disclosures about his secret visits and
conversations with the pope. But some significant moments came to light, anyway.

The accused Rosandic reported on the visit with the pope of a delegation from the Fermo
camp. The delegation consisted of the two war

criminals Professor Zanko and the former rector of the University of Zagreb, Professor
Horvat. Also the priest Draganovic was present. They presented to the pope a petition in
which, as Rosandic testified, they asked "that the pope intervene for the Croats who had
incurred problems. He was asked to support them materially, but also to intervene to see
that they would not be handed over nor persecuted. That was only the beginning of the
whole matter," said Rosandic. He continued to say that Zanko and Horvat after the visit
with the pope reported that the latter had promised "to intercede fully for them, that he
would provide material aid, and would support the whole matter."

When one asks where the priest Draganovic got the authority, why he was able to slip
whole transports of criminals to Argentina, where he got the money for the financing of
the terrorist army, etc.—the pope's promise in mid-1945 explains everything.

The accused Milos reported likewise during the trial in Zagreb about the visit of this
delegation to the pope in 1945:

Colonel Stir and the deputy Colonel Tomic told me that Zanko and Horvat were with the
pope and had submitted a petition asking that Pavelic not be handed over and that the
pope had said that he would use all his authority because he considered Pavelic a good
person and a good Cathoiic.

That throws an even clearer light on the Pavelic case, explains even better why this
bloodthirsty criminal, one of the worst of the last war, was not handed over to Yugoslavia,
and why no one placed him on trial outside Yugoslavia but instead, to the contrary, he
enjoyed the protection of the highest positions. It throws a significant light on Pope Pius
XII, that he steadfastly called the murderer of hundreds of thousands of people a "good
person" and a "good Catholic."

Also, the accused Kavran confirmed in the Zagreb trial the previous testimony about the
visit of this delegation with the pope in 1945. Likewise, he emphasized the fact that these
statements of the pope had an "absolutely positive" effect on the Ustashe in the camps.

Also, the accused Rosandic spoke in the trial about the ties between the pope and the
Ustasha war criminals. In the protocol, there is special attention given to the visit with
the pope in which the petition was submitted.

After the return to Fermo [from the Vatican, where the delegation "had been received
ceremoniously**!], Zanko called a meeting to which he invited all the camp inmates. In
his speech, he depicted in all detail the reception with the pope and repeated the basic
points of his speech. At the beginning, he said, the pope had presented the historical
significance of the Croats'

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

struggle, especially their battle against the Turks, for which they had received the
honorary designation "Bulwark of Christianity," and he emphasized that the Croats
recently had proven that they were deserving of this honorary designation still—in the
battle against bolshevism. He hoped that the Croats even in the future would remain loyal
to the Vatican. Furthermore, he (the pope) emphasized that he would concern himself
especially with the Croats and their state and that he would not abandon them in any
situation. But he would unceasingly support them in their efforts.

Everywhere in Italy and in Austria, this audience with the pope made an extraordinary
impression on the emigrants and invigorated their discouraged spirits.

Therefore, the pope was honored by the Ustasha criminals. When they were slipped into
Yugoslavia as terrorists, they carried not only bombs, knives, and radio systems, but also
the likeness of the pope. This, too, was shown in the Zagreb trial:

The chair of the court asked the accused Kavran: Did you bring a picture of Pope Pius XII
across the border; did you have a rosary and a chain with a pendant of Saint Anton and a
pistol? Yes!

The chair: How does that fit together? (Silence)

But during the trial he entered the following protocol:

Of course, the authority of the pope, who said that we had to lead the battle and that he
would support it, had an encouraging effect on us.

So the pope had a direct influence on the development of new, criminal Ustasha actions
and on the formation of new terrorist gangs who again tried to destroy the Yugoslav state.
This time the action could be nipped in the bud.

The imprisoned Ustashe found many opportunities to see their spiritual leader. At
another occasion, they came disguised as a choral club to give a concert for the pope. The
chorus had been formed in the Fermo camp—certainly a special kind of camp for war
criminals that allows a choral club to go on tour. . . . The accused engineer Petracic
reported:

The concert was held in a building near the Institute of Saint Hieronymus. This led to an
audience with the pope. It was a rather short audience with many people taking part. It
was arranged especially for Croats and Poles.

The pope received us with a few words in Italian. ... He wished us a happy return home
and gave us the Holy Blessing.

In this chorus, which was directed by the priest Jole Bujanovic, who was also a major war
criminal, organizer, and executer of the great massacres in Croatia, many war criminals of
the same calibre sang: the county supervisor Juraj Marcovic, upper Ustasha functionaries,
Nikola Jercovic, Captain Slavko Hajdinovic, Nicola Jerbic, Maks Hranilovic, etc. There
were also among them terrorists who were later slipped into Yugoslavia and then were
condemned in the Zagreb trial.

The Ustasha minister Vladimir Kosak, who had to answer for his war crimes before the
peoples' court in Zagreb, as witness in the trial of Archbishop Stepinac brought up the fact
that the latter had said, "that the Ustashe had gotten from the Vatican and from the high
clergy the guarantee that everything would end well." This information, he said, he had
gotten from the wife of Ante Pavelic. But that means nothing other than the fact that the
Vatican wanted to persuade Pavelic's Ustashe personally to return to Croatia to again
attack miscreants worst than beasts.

This is only part of the proof for the unbroken solidarity of the Vatican with the criminal
Ustashe even in the period after their deposing. We present this without claiming it to be
a complete picture or the presentation of the entire documentation at our disposal. We
merely wish to point out that the Vatican did not give up and never came to terms with
the situation that had been created after the war by the defeat of the Ustashe and of
fascism and by the victory of the people's forces in Croatia and Yugoslavia. The Ustasha
movement abroad with the "good Catholic" Pavelic at its head could thus through the
papal blessing be assured of his "fatherly concern."

{Secret Documents on the Relationship between the Vatican and the Ustasha-NDH, pp.
75-80.)

Archbishop Stepinac Preserves the Ustasha Booty

At the beginning of May 1945, when the German as well as the Ustasha troops had left
Zagreb, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac received from the Ustasha government the archives
of the foreign ministry of the NDH for safekeeping and signed a receipt.

At the same time, Archbishop Stepinac declared himself prepared to have the Franciscans
on the capitol bury a part of the gold from Pavelic, mainly gold teeth of the victims of
Jasenovac, and the remaining booty.
Written evidence of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac on the receipt of the archives of Ante
Pavelic:

The Independent State of Croatia

Foreign Ministry

Zagreb

Confirmation of receipt

Hereby the receipt of the archives of the Foreign Ministry of the Independent State of
Croatia is confirmed, specifically:

1. a chest covered with tin and marked with "AB-I" sealed with two locks,

2. a wooden chest marked with "AB-II," sealed with two locks,

3. three wooden chests marked with "PAV-I-III," sealed with one lock

4. a wooden chest marked with "OL-I," sealed with two locks,

414

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1945,

Facsimile of the confirmation of receipt for the archives of the Foreign Ministry of the
NDH, which Archbishop Stepinac took into custody at the beginning of May 1945.

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

5. a wooden chest marked with "OL-II," sealed with one lock,

6. a small wooden chest covered with tin and marked with "RZ," sealed with one lock.

For all of the locks the keys are simultaneously transferred, one for each lock.

Zagreb 6 May 1945 On orders of the poglavnik to transfer 8 chests (Signature unreadable)
Received a total of 8 chests A. Stepinac Archbishop

(Archives of Vladimir Dedijer)

Pavelic died in 1959 in Madrid holding a rosary, a gift of Pope Pius XII from the year 1941,
after he had received the special blessing of Pope John XXIII shortly before his death.
The official Ustasha news of Pavelic's death was as follows:

The poglavnik of the independent state of Croatia left the Republic of Argentina on 23
July 1957 at the border crossing of Rio Galegos (Patagonia), and on 24 July 1957 he
arrived in Punta Arenas in Chile. Thereafter, he stayed four months in Santiago, the
capital of Chile and then traveled to Spain. On 29 November 1957, he arrived in Madrid.
In November and December 1959, the poglavnik was obliged to undergo medical
treatment in the German hospital in Madrid. On 23 December 1959, the chief of the
Croatian militia, Engineer Ivan Asancaic was informed by the daughter of the poglavnik,
Marijana, by telephone from Madrid that the health of the poglavnik was serious and
since there was no hope for recovery, his expiration was to be expected. In the same call,
it was asked that someone come from Buenos Aires.

On 18 December 1959, Reverend Dr. Branko Marie received confession from the
poglavnik and Reverend Dr. Miguel Oltra gave him the sacrament of holy communion on
the same day.

On 27 December at 8:00 p.m., Reverend Dr. Branko Marie gave him the last rites. On the
same day, he received from the Holy Father John XXIII the special blessing. In the early
morning of 28 December 1959 at 3:55, the poglavnik died peacefully in his sleep.

At the moment of his death, attending him were: Reverend Dr. B. Marie and his daughter
Visnja.

This first news of the death of the poglavnik was sent on 28 December 1959 at 4 o'clock in
the morning Madrid time by urgent telegram to Buenos Aires so that all organizations of
the Croatian liberation movement in the world would be officially informed, which was
also the case.

In the course of the same day, information directly from Madrid reached the former
minister of the NDH, Prof. Dr. Andrija Ilic (Great Britain), the headquarters of the
Croatian Society of Europe (Munich), the Engineer Milan Sega (USA) and the president of
the United Canadian Croats, Ante Markovic (Canada).

Radio Madrid first broadcast a report on the death of the poglavnik in the midnight news
on 30 December 1959.

Up to this time, no one in Madrid had known of the poglavnik's stay in Spain, of his
illness, and of his death.

The doctor of the deceased Croatian head of state was the German university professor
Dr. Rudolf Seitz. The medical report on the illness and the death was subsequently
published.

After a blessing on 28 December 1959 at 4:30 p.m., Pavelic's body was taken to the church
of the cemetery Sacramental St. Isidor and lay there until 31 December 1959. The
Croatian head of state was holding the rosary in his hands that the Holy Father Pius XII
had given him in 1941 at his official visit to the Holy See.

On 31 December at 12:00 noon, Reverend Dr. Branko Marie read the Holy Mass dies
obitus presente cadavere and thereafter the burial took place at the same cemetery.

In the church, in addition to the family of the poglavnik, were Minister Dr. Andrija Ilic;
former president of the Rumanian government and leader of the "Iron Guard" movement,
Nj. E. Horia Sima; president of the Anti-bolshevik Peoples' Block and of the Ukrainian
National Movement, Dr. Vladimir Pastuscuk; the Rumanian minister, His Eminence V.
Jasinski; and Spanish and Croatian friends.

After the Holy Mass, the coffin was opened and those present were able to see the
blessedly deceased poglavnik for the last time.

At the open grave the former minister, Prof. Dr. Andrija Ilic, took leave in the name of the
martyrs homeland and all Croats throughout the world. Then the councilman of the
Croatian Liberation Movement, Dr. Zvonko Matic, and Pastuscuk held the following
speech in the name of the Anti-Bolshevik Peoples' Block:

May the Spanish soil weigh lightly on our brave head of state until the day the Croatian
patriots will have taken him to the liberated independent State of Croatia, which he had
resurrected through his unflinching struggle and which he through his great sacrifice had
branded as an everlasting goal

418 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

on the whole Croatian people for all times! The poglavnik Dr. Ante Pavelic is with us!

(Hrvatska, Buenos Aires, 8 January 1960)

Andrija Artukovic: "I was Guided by the Moral Principles of the Catholic Church,"

Andrija Artukovic, Pavelic's Minister of the Interior, at his trial in Zagreb on 16 April 1986,
said: "My principles and laws were those of the Catholic Church. There is no difference
between them." He placed value on the statement that he subordinated his life and his
behavior "to the moral principles that the Catholic Church represents."

In regard to the compulsory rebaptisms of the Orthodox people and the genocide of them
for religious reasons, Artukovic strongly incriminated the Catholic Church:

I talked with Stepinac about the conversions. I was not familiar with the material and
since I knew the archbishop personally, I entrusted him with this task. He, archbishop
and respected religious leader, gladly accepted it and advised me in religious matters.
Of course, the accused Artukovic denied any pressure and spoke only of
"recommendations" in the sense that the conversion to the Catholic faith had been
offered to everyone who wanted it.

He assumed his new office and assured me that he would seek out the proper co-workers.
He said to me: "Leave that to me. As representative of the Catholic Church, I will carry
out the matter to the best of my ability and my

419

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

conscience." ... I thereby charged Stepinac as a respected religious leader and was certain
that the matter was in the best hands with him.

Because of the trial of Andrija Artukovic, the US-American press reported on the
connections between the Vatican and the Ustashe, especially about the role played by
Krunoslav Draganovic, the secretary of the Institute of Saint Hieronymus in Rome, in the
organization of the flight to Argentina and to other Latin American states for Pavelic and
other Ustasha leaders and Nazi war criminals.

(From correspondents' reports from AP, AFP, and Reuters on the trial in Zagreb,
published on 17 April 1986)

Two Secret Documents on Catholic Priests' Help in the Flight

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP New War Department Building Washington 29, D.C.

21 January 1947

COUNTRY: Italy/Vatican/South America

SUBJECT: Vatican-sponsored International Emigration Organization DATE OF THE


REPORT: November 1945 EVALUATION: B-3

2. BACKGROUND : In about August, 1945, the existence was noted of a Church


organization known as the O.N.A.R.M.O. (Opera Nazionale Assistenza Religiosa Morale
Operai —National Organization for the Religious and Moral Assistance to Workmen)
whose aim was that of placing chaplains in all large factories to counteract the influence
and propaganda of similarly placed Communist Party personnel. Thus, while the
organization's aims were primarily religious, they had a certain underlying political bent,
in view of their anti-Communism. . . .
. . . This organization was headed by a priest named Don TORRAZZA in Genoa, a very
close associate of the Auxiliary Bishop of Genoa, Monsignor SIRI

421

PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

... It was learned that Monsignor SIRI was contemplating founding an anti-Communist
organization, to be fused eventually with the Monarchist "TRICOLORE" movement,
already existing in Genoa and Turin, should this movement prove reliable. 3.
DEVELOPMENT

... A) International Emigration Organization : . . .

Nothing was heard of this organization nor of its protagonists until just recently when
their names reappeared.

***

WAR DEPARTMENT CLASSIFIED MESSAGE CENTER INCOMING CLASSIFIED


MESSAGE

TOP SECRET

STATE DEPARTMENT MESSAGE FOR INFORMATION OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT

From: AMPOLAD Leghorn via Rome Italy sgd Greene To: Secretary of State

Nr: 83 21 May 1947

British Embassy has informed AFHQ of receipt information that number of Ustachi
including some on war criminals lists intend sail May 25 from Genoa for Buenos Aires
aboard PHILIPPI, flying Panama flag. British Embassy stated there will be small number
listed war criminals whose names are not known and who intend travel clandestinely,
having embarked before other passengers and hidden in the ballast. There will also be
about 40 "small fry" with plausible identity documents.

(Ref Deptel 30, May 2). In addition McLean mission has informed AFHQ that Ustachi war
criminal Vilko Pecniker now in hiding near Bagnoli camp. McLean mission recommended
to GHQ that immediate steps be taken arrest him as most dangerous Ustachi leader still
at large.

COS, AFHQ, informed me that for the present no arrests of quislings and war criminals
will be made outside DP camps and AMG territory, but that such information as that
reported above will be passed to Italian authorities for whatever action they care to take. .
..

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP NEW WAR DEPARTMENT BUILDING

WASHINGTON S3. O. C

CCUHTHjf: SU2J ZCT

£1 Jaguar7 1947

ITAL7/VAXICA2J/SC0*TE A2J2P.ICA

7atican-Sponsorad International Solera tic j Organisation :. : - ■ l ;

EVALUATION:". ■ ; •• B-3.-.r^,.. r,' v.-;- v:i

. '» ' ."1 rtV.:.u..':«"'

r ' 2. EACJCHCUND: la about An£U3t, 1945, the ari3-

■ banco "wan actad ci a c a urea organization knov/c as tsa

( 0?Z?A' NATIONALS AS6I5TSNSA : RSLIGI0SA MORALS i"C?3U2 - Heticnai


Organisation For the KelTaioua and""Ucral >X3 3i3^ anca to v/orl£r^nljwao3a ala waa
that e? placing chaplaira iis ail larga ractcri23 to. counteract the influence and propa-
"J'saada cJf 3ijailari7 placed Coasuflist Part/ personnel. Tiius, "•wails the organisation's
ai23 vyers priiraril/ religious, the?

had a cartain u adarl7ia.^ : gQ r^oa -.^^ n j.V u A^^ TA? y °* "~ g ~ : r. as t i - 0 c *gaua i a
- su ^^^M^M^M^^^^^^iMW^

lY^S!ii^i^^^^^^{^i3 ^crgaaiJsatioa^vTaa headed by c j 'ca^sd Dec JSSSSL^ZZX ia


Ganoa, a veryrclcse ass cciata or" the I Airr 11 lar7• atahoo o£ S fc . & o a. Moaalgaor'-5JJ t
. 1 »S!33SSSRBi5

WES

aa
j aati-Occaiualat organization, to bo fused, .eventually '.vita tha I venarcnist.
"TRICOLORS" gov emsnt, air0ad7 existing la Gaaoa aad I..Tuzin,.. 3hculd this jzevecont
prove reliable*

A) lataraatioaal Sal gat ion Organisation :

Notalag was heard of 'thla organisation acr or it3 protagoni3ta until Just recently whaa
their na»as reappeared

424 PART V: THE POPE'S LOYALTY TO THE USTASHE

Secretary of State

21 May

-"British Embassy has Informed AP3Q of receipt "tfoTtha^ number of Ustachi including
some on war ?lata intend sail May 25 from Genoa for Buenos «&Lid PHllSm flying
Panama flag. British Embassy
^sesFSs: saws.isrr

.auslble identity documents.

fnef Dentel 30. May 2). In addition McLean mission * a ?2S thif natachl war criminal
Vilko Pecnikar

dangerous Ustachi leader still.at !Urge ;

COS AFHQ. informed me that for the present no. ^

" f . ____ f nlm

Whatever action they care to take.

^rfp gpt 83 f repeated Belgrade S

floce

.—j '^fj— ' «*-• End

Tta* "—Tiote: 30 1» CMIB 990 (7 May) <*» jCRmo-^CTIoa: gen go.^ ^ iggg^

IASA

ifis:

Facsimile of secret news to the Secretary of State.

Afterword

Pavelic was deposed, the Ustasha organization was defeated, and the guilty were brought
to court, provided that they were not able to flee in time, as did the Poglavnik, for
example. Archbishop Stepinac did not have to flee. The gray eminence in the background
was able to live on totally undisturbed by justice after the fall of his accomplices, as if
nothing had happened. And he did not retreat discretely, as you might expect, but actively
exploited the halting attitude of the new regime—which not unjustifiably feared
international difficulties if he were to be arrested. So he continued to collaborate with the
Ustashe still active in the country as guerrillas and magnanimously placed his bishop's
palace at their disposal. He even openly demanded that the west use the atomic bomb to
fell the government in Belgrade! Even after that he was handled with kid gloves:
Yugoslavia merely requested that the Vatican recall him from Zagreb. But the Holy See
did not deign to accept this as a magnanimous offer. Stepinac stayed. Only after this
provocation was he arrested at the end of 1946 (!) and brought before the court. The trial
could not have been more fair: Not only was the whole world press invited, at the request
of the government, only Catholics were admitted as judges. (Conversely, in our most free
state [Germany], membership in one of the two major churches [Catholic and Lutheran]
is not a reason for bias in a blasphemy trial against atheists.)* The sentence: a ridiculous
16 years of hard labor. Immediately the Vatican raised its

*This refers to the blasphemy proceedings in Germany, in which atheists have been
persecuted for publicly criticizing the Catholic Church. In these proceedings, the atheists
were not granted the right to refuse a Christian judge because of bias.

426 AFTERWORD

freshly elected martyr on a shield and put its whole propaganda machine into motion
against this "political decision": It intervened—not without success—with all governments
of the world. Even the American president and the United Nations came into the picture,
and the world press fell into a unison witch hunt. The 800,000 dead remained
unmentioned—until today.

Stepinac, by the way, was the only high cleric to be called to justice for his deed, at least
partially—he was released after five years and even received the purple robes of a cardinal.
The Catholic Church again washes its hands in innocence and comes away without a hair
disturbed, although it supported the Ustashe right from the beginning. The pope blessed
Pave-lic not only on his death bed. Already before the founding of the NDH, he received
this man, twice deservedly condemned to death, and his cohorts in private audiences,
blessed him and the others, and wished them "much success." After the usurpation of
power by the Yugoslav fascists, he expressed his joy over the developments in Croatia
knowing well what was happening there. He was well informed by Archbishop Stepinac
and the papal legate Marcone—presumably better than anyone else. Also 8,000
photographs of the massacres were present in the Vatican. But the pope did not only keep
silent. No matter whether it was the pope, an archbishop, a monk, or a simple priest, all of
them supported "the Catholic battle rites in the Kingdom of God."

The Nazi party was banned; the Catholic Church was not. On the contrary, it flourished
well and at the present is again returning to the front ranks after the French Revolution
forced it into the rear. The pope can even allow himself to turn down a visit to Yugoslavia
because he refuses to accede to the more than justified demand that he apologize to the
dead Serbs and their loved ones.

What does it mean that one should forgive? Well then, be logical: Please open all prisons.
What is a dead man in comparison to 100 million? And finally end the discrimination
against Adolf Hitler, rehabilitate Eich-mann, and compensate the family of Rudolf Hess!
What do you mean, that is something quite different? Why? Are you a racist? One is not
permitted to kill Jews, but Serbs are fair game—and nevertheless 60,000 Jews were killed
on this occasion. Oh, I see, the Catholic Church has changed, but the Nazis never will
change, and besides it has done so much good. Well, Hitler too: after all, everyone knows
he built the Autobahn. And his "Winter Aid" was certainly morally not inferior to Catholic
charity. And as far as change is concerned: the Nazis were not given a chance to change, if
you can forget that they have persevered in the best positions as members of the CDU or
(but rarer) of the SPD in our new, still current history.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has had almost 2,000 years; the proof is still
outstanding. Quite to the contrary, even after the fall of Pavelic, the Church supported its
murderous friends, and the Poglavnik owed his freedom exclusively to the Vatican. It not
only let him find refuge in its cloisters and then in Rome, but also through its
Commissione d'Assistenza Pontifica got him a phony passport of the Red Cross, so that he
could flee to Argentina and spend the last days of his life in comfort. And as yet another
reminder: the pope refused to apologize to the victims —four years ago. That is surely
enough, isn't it?!

In any case, isn't it enough to bear a deep shame for belonging to the church after one's
eighteenth year—or at least after reading this book? And as far as "probation" is
concerned: one can join this very worldly organization again, if one absolutely must, at
any time—specifically when the missing papal apology is followed by material
compensation (with all the interest). The biggest land and stock owners in the world
should not find it difficult to raise the money. And anyone who can't think of anything
better to do with his church taxes could address this compensation plan in private. Where
there's a will, there's a way—the church has drilled this message into us, and it is up to us
to use it for a good purpose.*

♦On the basis of the 1933 concordat between Hitler and the Vatican, which is still valid in
Germany, the state collects dues for the two major Christian churches and calls them
"church taxes."

Appendix I

Report of the "Boro Dedijer Foundation for Peace" on the Work of the Russell Tribunal of
1 March 1985

Investigations on genocide and compulsory assimilation were on the agenda of the


Russell Tribunal from the very beginning. Already during the First World War, Bertrand
Russell conducted a campaign against the war strategy of annihilation. At that time he
expressed ideas similar to those of Lemkin, who coined the concept of "genocide** about
twenty years later.

The First Tribunal on the investigation of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam pronounced the
U.S. government guilty of genocide of the Vietnamese people. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote his
well known treatise on genocide at that time, which was adopted into the basis of the
sentence.

For the deliberations of the Tribunal, Professor Vladimir Dedijer presented a historical
documentation on genocide crimes and a treatise on concepts of international law and on
international ethics.

In his work, Professor Dedijer also used material from his unpublished manuscript on the
genocide of Jews in the Second World War and his writings on genocide crimes in
Yugoslavia.

Members of the Russell Tribunal considered individually or in communal effort a


multitude of constantly increasing cases of genocide crimes and compulsory assimilation
in our times. Here we would like to list only a few:

1. Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973 in the issues Nr. 324-326 of his journal Les Temps Modernes
dedicated himself to the problem of compulsory assimilation in France.

2. On the basis of the findings of the First Russell Tribunal, that there is no state and no
social system that has not been involved in genocide crimes, a commission

430 APPENDIX I

was formed for the investigation of crimes against twelve small ethnic groups in the
Soviet Union in the years 1944-1946.

3. Upon the initiative of Jean-Paul Sartre, a commission was formed in Italy to investigate
the question of genocide in Ireland.

4. The Second Russell Tribunal on Latin America considered among other things the
crimes against the local Indians; these investigations were continued by the Fourth
Russell Tribunal in the Netherlands.

5. On 1 May 1983, a group of Armenian history professors petitioned Professor Dedijer to


reassemble a Russell Tribunal to investigate the genocide crimes of the Turkish state
during the First World War. On 15 June 1993, Professor Dedijer therefore suggested to
the general secretary of the Basso Tribunal, Dr. Gianni Tognoni, that this tribunal should
undertake the task. Dr. Tognoni agreed on 5 July. The suggestion had already been made
from other people.

In the spring of 1984 in a special meeting of the tribunal in Paris, Turkey was pronounced
guilty of these crimes.

6. Representatives of the Slovene minority in Italy also addressed the Russell Tribunal
with a complaint. Among the tribunal, the Italian president Pertini, and other politicians,
there were various negotiations. On 13 June 1984, President Pertini reported to Professor
Vladimir Dedijer in writing: "I would like to inform you that I have charged the proper
government authorities with the investigation of this case"
7. Various other cases regarding the investigation of genocide crimes and compulsory
assimilation have been presented to the members of the Russell Tribunal:

a) Complaints regarding criminal actions have been lodged against Hungary, Serbs, and
Germans in Rumania.

b) Complaints were raised against Bulgaria because of the Turkish minority there being
threatened with extinction.

c) In April 1983, a group of Serb and Croatian intellectuals accused the Moslems of
genocide of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and in Hercegovina. The case was investigated by
Dr. R. Rizman; the accusations against the Moslems proved to be unfounded.

However, in this part of Yugoslavia an alarmingly great number of punishments are


pronounced because of slanderous remarks.

d) In connection with the claim by the leader of the French communists, Marchais, that
there are no instances of forced assimilation of minorities in France, we received a
request to investigate "the compulsory assimilation of minorities in France, especially of
the Basks."

e) We received a request to take up research into the genocide crimes, especially of


religiously motivated ones, in Croatia during the Second World War.

In a supplementary petition, we were asked to investigate the current living conditions of


the Serbs in Croatia.

f) From Ghana came the request to investigate the compulsory expulsion of two million
Ghanian laborers out of Nigeria.

g) We received petitions to clarify the slaughter of Palestinians in two Beirut camps.

h) We were also asked to investigate the state of emergency of the Albanians in the
Yugoslav Kosovo area and the situation of the Serbs and Montenegrans there, who are
still fleeing from this area in great numbers.

i) Various petitions have been submitted to conduct investigations into the genocide in
Macedonia since the beginning of the twentieth century.

etc., etc.

On the basis of the increasing, world-wide state despotism, the number of genocide
crimes is also rising. We have therefore decided to handle the above-mentioned cases
together in a scientific symposium. The main task of this symposium will be to examine
the definitions of the genocide convention of 1948 and to prepare the realization of new
forms of genocide, especially of cultural, economic, and political genocide. We are
planning an international meeting of scientists from throughout the world.

On the basis of his decades-long experience in the historical investigation of genocide


crimes, Professor Dedijer has been asked to compose a book on this subject based on the
work of our organization similar to what he had done already subsequent to a symposium
in 1972 in Linz commemorating the one hundredth birthday of Bertrand Russell, which
took place at the urging of the Austrian Federal Chancellor Dr. Bruno Kreisky. In this
work, Professor Dedijer treated the subject of the symposium, the development of
spheres of political influence. Professor Dedijer accepted the new charge and informed
his publishers abroad.

The work treats especially the example of the Macedonians as victims of political
interests and of genocide. Let us remember the last words of the great poet James Joyce
in answer to the question of whether he believed in a happy future for humankind: M . . .
only if Macedonia and Ireland exist." In this book, for which the majority of the
documents have already been assembled, the following aspects of Macedonian history are
handled:

a) the division of Macedonia among the kingdoms of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and
Albania at the beginning of this century;

b) annihilation actions against the Macedonians in all these countries (including the
newly founded Yugoslavian state);

c) the founding of the socialist Republic of Macedonia and the situation of the
Macedonians in Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania;

432 APPENDIX I

d) a critical evaluation of the position of the socialist Republic of Macedonia within the
Yugoslav federation of states;

e) a comparative investigation of the situation of minorities in Bulgaria, Greece, Albania,


and Macedonia currently.

Rudolf Rizman, Christopher Farley

Appendix II From the Encyclopaedia Judaica

Proselytes

There is ample evidence of a widespread conversion to Judaism during the period of the
Second Temple, especially the latter part of the period, and the word ger, which in biblical
times meant a stranger or an alien, became synonymous with a proselyte.
Among the notable converts to Judaism may be mentioned the royal family of Adiabene,
Aquila and Onkelos; Flavius Clemens, the nephew of Vespasian; and Fulvia, wife of
Saturninus, a Roman senator. Unique, as the only case of forced conversion in Judaism,
was the mass conversion of the Edomites by John Hyrcanus.

In addition to those outstanding figures, however, it is obvious that proselytism was


widespread among the ordinary people. The statement of the New Testament that the
Pharisees "compass sea and land to make one proselyte" (Matt. 23: 15), suggesting a
vigorous and active proselytization may possibly be an exaggeration, but on the other
hand, the near pride which the rabbis took in the claim that some of their greatest figures
were descended from proselytes point to an openhanded policy toward their acceptance.
Such incidents as the different approach of Shammai and Hillel to the request to be
taught the principles of Judaism by a potential proselyte and the incidental mention of
"Judah the Ammonite proselyte" point to the fact that the movement was not confined to
the upper classes. In fact Josephus states explicitly that in his day the inhabitants of both
Greek and barbarian cities evinced a great zeal for Judaism.

It was during this period that the detailed laws governing the acceptance of proselytes
were discussed and codified, and they have remained standard in Orthodox Judaism.

434 APPENDIX II

Laws of Conversion

The procedure, established by the tannaim, according to which a non-Jew may be


accepted into the Jewish faith, was elucidated as follows: "In our days, when a proselyte
comes to be converted, we say to him: 'What is your objective? Is it not known to you that
today the people of Israel are wretched, driven about, exiled, and in constant suffering?' If
he says: 'I know of this and I have the merit to belong to that people,' we accept him
immediately and we inform him of some of the lighter precepts and of some of the
severer ones ... we inform him of the chastisements for the transgression of these
precepts . . . and we also inform him of the reward for observing these precepts ... we
should not overburden him nor be meticulous with him . . (Yev. 47a; cf. Ger. 1, in: M.
Higger, Sheva Massekhtot Ketamnot [1930], 68-69). This text refers to a person who
converted through conviction. The halakhah also accepts a posteriori proselytes who had
converted in order to marry, to advance themselves, or out of fear (Yev. Z4b, in the name
of Rav, see TJ, Kid. 4:1 65b-d; Maim. Yad, Issurei Bi'ah 13: 17; Sh. Ar., YD 268: 12)., The
acceptance of a proselyte "under the wings of the Divine Presence" is equivalent to
Israel's entry into the covenant, i.e., with circumcision, immersion, and offering a
sacrifice (Ger. 2: 4, in: M. Higger; loc. cit. 72).
A proselyte had to sacrifice a burnt offering either of cattle or two young pigeons. R.
Johanan b. Zakkai instituted that in those times when sacrifice was no longer possible, a
proselyte was not obliged to set aside money for the sacrifice (Ker. 9a). Therefore, only
circumcision and immersion remained. R. Eliezer and R. Joshua disagreed as to whether
someone who immersed himself but was not circumcised or vice versa could be
considered a proselyte. According to R. Eliezer, he is a proselyte, even if he performed
only one of these commandments. R. Joshua, however, maintained that immersion was
indispensable. The halakhic conclusion is that "he is not a proselyte unless he has both
been circumcised and has immersed himself (Yev. 46). The act of conversion must take
place before a bet din, consisting of three members; a conversion carried out by the
proselyte when alone is invalid (Yev. 46b-47a). There is a suggestion that the three
members of the bet din must be witnesses only to his acceptance of the precepts but not
to the immersion. Maimonides, however, decided (Yad, Issurei Bi'ah 13: 7), that a
proselyte who immersed himself in the presence of two members only is not a proselyte.
The schools of Shammai and Hillel differed on the issue of a proselyte who had already
been circumcised at the time of his conversion: "Bet Shammai states: 'One must draw
from him the blood of circumcision'; Bet Hillel states: 'One need not draw the blood of
circumcision from him.' " (Tosef., Shab. 15: 9; TB. Shab. 13Sa). Most of the rabbinic
authorities decide in favor of Bet Shammai (Tos. to Shab. 13Sa; Maim. Yad, Issurei Bi'ah
14: 5; Sh. Ar., YD 268: 1), and "who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments and hast
commanded us to circumcise proselytes and to draw from them the blood of the
covenant" (Shab. 137b) is said in the circumcision benediction of proselytes.

A proselyte must observe all the precepts that bind Jews. The statement: "There shall be
one law for the citizen and for the stranger that dwelleth amongst you"

From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 435

(Ex. 12: 49), which refers to the paschal lamb, the sages interpreted to mean that the
stranger (proselyte) was the equal of the citizen concerning all the precepts of the Torah
(Mekh. Pisha, 15). They tried to equalize the status of the proselyte and that of the Jew;
certain differences stemming from the origin of the convert, however, remained.
According to an anonymous Mishnah, a proselyte may not confess himself after taking
out the tithes since the statement occurs in the confession "the land which Thou hast
given to us"; nor does he read the section on the first fruits, where the statement is:
"which the Lord hath sworn unto our fathers to give unto us. The proselyte, praying by
himself must say: "the God of the Fathers of Israel"; in the synagogue he says: "the God
of your Fathers" (Ma'as. Sh. 5: 14; Bik. 1: 4). According to one tradition, R. Judah
permitted a proselyte to read the section on the first fruits, claiming that Abraham was
the father of the whole world (TJ, Bik. 1 : 4 64a; but in Tosef., Bik. 1 : 2 this permission is
only extended to the, Kenites). The Palestinian amoraim, R. Joshua b. Levi and R. Avihu,
agreed with R. Judah. The authorities (particularly R. Samson in his commentary to
Bikkurim [ibid.], and Maimonides in his letter to Obadiah the Proselyte, below) in
permitting a proselyte to say "the God of our Fathers" in the prayers based themselves on
the same rationale.

A proselyte terminates all former family ties upon conversion and "is considered a newly
born child." His Jewish name is not associated with that of his father and he is referred to
as "the son of Abraham (our father)." Later, it became the custom to name the proselyte
himself after the first Jew who knew his Creator "Abraham, the son of Abraham."
According to the letter of the law, a proselyte may marry his relatives. The sages, however,
decreed against this "So that they should not say: 'We have come from a greater sanctity
to a lesser sanctity.' " (Yev. 22a, Yad, Issurei Bi'ah 14: 12). The disqualifications pertaining
to testimony of relatives in judicial cases of family members do not apply to the proselyte;
his relatives also may not inherit from him. If no heirs were born to him after his
conversion, his property and his possessions are considered not to belong to anyone, and
whoever takes hold of them becomes their owner (BB 3: 3, 4: 9; Git. 39a; Yad, Zekhi'ah u-
Mattanah 1:6).

(Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Cecil Roth, Oxford/Jerusalem 1971)

Appendix III

Decree of Omar II from the Koran^ahRaya

1. Christians and Jews in conquered lands are not permitted to build their own cloisters
and churches.

2. They are not permitted to make repairs on their buildings.

3. When Moslems live in Christian or Jewish houses, repairs of these houses can be made
only in dire necessity.

4. Christians and Jews must build special hostels for Muslem travelers.

5. In these hostels, they must provide full hospitality for three days.

6. The acquisition of real property and houses is reserved for Moslems.

7. Christians and Jews may neither permit their children to read the Koran nor to touch it.
On the other hand, they may not prevent anyone from their circles from adopting the
Islamic faith.

8. Christians and Jews may not sue each other.

9. They are obligated to greet Moslems at all times with full respect.

10. When they enter a house, Christians and Jews must offer a Moslem a place of honor.
At the same time, it is forbidden for them to utter a word of contradiction.

11. They are forbidden to wear the same type of shoes and clothes as the Moslems.

12. They are not permitted to learn the Arabic language, the language of scholars and
writers.

13. They are forbidden to ride a horse with a saddle.

Decree of Omar II from the Koran-al-Raya 437

14. The wearing of sabers or other weapons—at home as well as in public—is forbidden to
them.

15. They are forbidden to sell or produce wine.

16. Jews and Christians are not permitted to manufacture seals with their names.

17. They are forbidden to wear wide belts.

18. They are forbidden to have crosses or Bibles on them in public.

19. They may not speak loudly within a house, only whisper.

20. Within a house, they may sing only softly.

21. They are permitted to pray softly when someone dies.

22. Moslems are permitted to plow up and sow over all old cemeteries of the miscreants.

23. Christians and Jews are not permitted to have slaves.

Appendix IV From the Encyclopaedia Judaica

In the course of time, the Spanish Inquisition evolved an elaborate procedure of its own.
When a tribunal was opened at any place, an edict of grace would be published, inviting
those conscious of heresy to come forward and make confession within a "period of
grace," generally of 30 or 40 days. After the lapse of this period they could be proceeded
against by Inquisition officers. At later stages, an edict of faith would periodically be
issued, summoning all persons, under pain of excommunication, to denounce to the
authorities all offenses enumerated in it of which he might have cognizance. These
invariably comprised all those popularly associated with Judaism: lighting candles on
Friday evening, changing the linen on the Sabbath, abstaining from pork and scaleless
fishes, observing the Jewish holidays and especially the Day of Atonement and the fast of
Esther, laying out the dead according to the Jewish custom, etc. By this means, the whole
population became accomplices of the Inquisition in its task of eradicating heresy; and
the denunciation of one of the customs mentioned above, performed absentmindedly or
by mere force of habit, was frequently sufficient to bring a man to the stake.

Arrest and Evidence

Everything took place under the greatest secrecy, which became one of the main terrors
of the Inquisition. Any breach of this was liable to be punished with the utmost severity,
like heresy itself. From the moment of arrest, therefore, the utmost segregation obtained.
The accused persons were confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition, such as may still
be seen in Evora and elsewhere. As was inevitable, there were sometimes terrible abuses,
women suffering especially; and it happened more than once that female prisoners were
dragged pregnant to the stake.

The rules governing evidence were so devised as to exclude all witnesses who

From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 439

were likely to be of any use to the prisoner, on the ground that their evidence would be
untrustworthy. No such scruples, however, prevailed with regard to witnesses for the
prosecution, who were frequently inspired merely by venom. Moreover, the names of the
accusers were suppressed, though originally this was supposed to be permissible only in
the case of "powerful persons" who might intimidate the witnesses. The accusers and
accused were thus never confronted. The evidence admitted was flimsy in the extreme:
mere regard for personal cleanliness might be sufficient to convict a man of Judaism or
Islam, and so cost him his life. Once the accusation was made, the subsequent procedure
was based upon a desire to make the accused person confess his crime and thus be
admitted to penitence. If this was not forthcoming spontaneously, in accordance with the
spirit of the age, torture might be applied: though as a matter of fact in this particular
instance the Spanish Inquisition, notorious though its cruelties were, compared favorably
with the Roman, where torture might be continued even after confession in order to
extort the names of accomplices. Death under torture was by no means uncommon. In
most cases, however, the physician who was present enforced sufficient moderation to
avoid this conclusion. Generally, the torture was abundantly sufficient to elicit a
confession, if one had been withheld up to that point. It was imposed in most cases only
to procure the confession of what the inquisitors already knew or suspected. The cases in
which a condemnation was avoided were therefore few in the extreme. Thus, in the
Toledo tribunal between the years 1484 to 1531 they totaled on an average less than two
yearly. In the Portuguese Inquisition, the number of condemnations came to well over
three-quarters of the total number of cases tried.

Punishments

Often, in the case of any convicted person who professed repentance, "reconciliation"
followed and the defendant was restored to the bosom of the Church. In such a
reconciliation the defendant had to abjure either de levi or de vehementi. A transgressor
of a de levi reconciliation might perhaps be punished to abjure de vehementi. This,
paradoxically enough, being itself considered a punishment since the convicted person
had to participate in the procession of the auto-da-fe, and had to do many penances,
pilgrimages to holy shrines, etc. There were two forms of reconciliation on de vehementi,
and a slight transgression from Christianity would be considered a relapse into the old
sins. Harsher penalties in force included scourging, very common in the early period but
remitted more and more frequently as time went on. This was executed publicly under
every humiliating circumstance. Similar, with the omission of the lashes, was the
verguenza, which consisted in the offender parading the town stripped to the waist and
bearing the insignia of the offense, the town-crier meanwhile proclaiming the sentence.
The mordaza or gag was sometimes applied, this being regarded as increasing the
humiliation of the punishment. In abjurations de levi, the offender added that in case of
failing in his promise to comply with punishment he should be held as impenitent: in
abjurations de vehementi, that in such a case he should be considered and treated

440 APPENDIX IV

as a relapsed heretic. A reconciliation of this sort could be performed only once and any
subsequent conviction was taken as an obvious proof that the original penitence had been
insincere and the culprit was condemned to the stake.

The reconciliation was invariably accompanied by a punishment of varying intensity.


More severe was the penalty of the galleys, an economical device of Ferdinand the
Catholic whereby the punishment of heresy was turned to the benefit of the state and
which was adopted by the Roman Inquisition. In 1573, and again in 1591, the Suprema
ordered that all Conversos, even when confessing their crime freely, should be sent to the
galleys, and it remained a penalty very frequently inflicted upon secret Jews. In the
course of the 18th century, other types of penal servitude were substituted. For women,
forced service in hospitals or houses of correction was the alternative.

Perpetual incarceration was another common form of punishment; though the prison was
known by the euphemistic title of casa de la penitencia or de la misericordia. At a later
period, the duration of the imprisonment was generally decreased, persons being released
after eight years or even less, though the title of the punishment officially remained the
same. Among the other punishments may be mentioned that of exile or exclusion from
certain places, and the custom of razing to the ground the house of any particularly
heinous offender or one in which heretical—especially Jewish—services had been held.

It was not only in his own person that any person convicted of a serious offense by the
Inquisition was punished. A number of disabilities followed which fell not only on those
penanced but also on their children and their male descendants for two generations to
come: they were excluded from any public dignity; they were not permitted to become
physicians, apothecaries, tutors of the young, advocates, scriveners, or farmers of
revenue; they were subjected to certain sumptuary laws, not being permitted to wear
cloth of gold or silver or precious stones, to bear arms or to ride on horseback. Neglect of
these provisions, sometimes even after the lapse of several generations, brought the
offender once more into the clutches of the Inquisition. However, infractions were
generally punished only by a fine, and the sale of rehabilitation ultimately became very
common.

One of the strongest weapons of the Inquisition was the power it had of confiscating the
property of those convicted of heresy. At the beginning, the proceeds were devoted to the
use of the crown, but they gradually devolved more and more upon the Inquisition itself.
In the early period, general arrangements on the part of the New Christians to save
themselves from arbitrary confiscation were not uncommon, but this practice speedily
died out. It was through this power that the Inquisition was raised into a corporation of
such vast influence and wealth. Above all, it made it overwhelmingly to its interest to
procure the conviction of all who were brought before it, especially when they were
persons of great means. Nothing else, perhaps, was more instrumental in draining the
Peninsula of its accumulated wealth during the course of the 16th, 17th, and 18th
centuries. It was a weapon which struck at the whole of a man's family, and might reduce
it in a moment from affluence to beggary, while through its means the economic life of
the whole country was liable to be disorganized.

From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 441

The Death Penalty

The final sanction of the Inquisition was that of death. As an ecclesiastical body, however,
it was not permitted itself to be a party to this. It therefore "relaxed" the convicted person
to the secular arm, with a formal recommendation for mercy, adding that if it were found
necessary to proceed to the extreme penalty, it should be done "without effusion of
bloodthat is, by burning. This was an old legal fiction of the Catholic Church dating back
to the 11th or 12th contury; and the mode of punishment was justified by a text in John
15: 6: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men
gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."

Generally speaking, the extreme penalty was reserved for those who refused the
opportunity for repentance: either the contumacios, who gloried in their crime and died
true martyrs; or the "relapsed," who had been reconciled on some previous occasion and
whose backsliding proved their insincerity; or the diminutos, whose confession was
incomplete and who shielded their accomplices; or the negativos, who refused to confess
to the charges made against them in the hope of escaping conviction. In this last category
there must necessarily have been included on occasion some who were absolutely
innocent of the crimes imputed to them and would not confess to falsehood even to
escape death. The fact that such persons were condemned to the flames shows clearly on
what sure ground the Inquisition generally felt itself. "Dogmatizers," or those who,
whether baptized or not, propagated heretical views were also regarded as inevitable
victims, and in the earlier period of the Inquisition many fervent professing Jews suffered
under this head. However, by no means all of those executed capitally were burned alive.
A profession of repentance, even after condemnation, was almost always effective in
securing preliminary garroting, only the corpse then being burned at the stake. The
effigies of fugitives, with the bones of those who had escaped justice by death (sometimes
in prison or under torture) would similarly be committed to the flames. Those burned in
effigy on certain occasions sometimes totaled something like half as many as those
burned in person. This was far from an empty formality, as the condemnation secured the
confiscation of their property, while reconciliation was in such cases obviously outside
the bounds of possibility.

The Autos-da-Fe

The sentences of the Inquisition were announced at the so-called Act of Faith: auto-de-fe
as it was termed in Spain and auto-da-fe in Portugal. For lighter offenses, the ceremonial
might be private {auto particular or autillo), in which case it would be held in a church;
but this was rarely resorted to for so grave a crime as Judaizing, particularly as it was
considered wrong to pronounce a sentence of death in the sacred precincts. In most cases,
the ceremony was public (auto publico general). This ultimately became the subject of
elaborate organization. The ceremony would take place on some feast day in the principal
square of the city. Ample notice

442 APPENDIX IV

was given so as to attract as large a group of spectators as possible, spiritual benefits


being promised to all who were present. Two stagings were erected at vast expense-one
for those convicted and their spiritual attendants, and the other for the inquisitors and
the rest of the authorities, while a temporary altar, draped in black, was set up in the
middle.

The proceedings would be opened by a procession in which all the clergy of the city took
part. Behind them followed those condemned to appear. All those abjuring de vehementi
had to carry lighted tapers in their hands and to wear the sanbenito or saco bennito (the
abito as it was called in the official sentence). This, which was an innovation of the
Spanish Inquisition, consisted of a long yellow robe, transversed by a black cross (in the
case of those convicted of formal heresy alone, only one of the arms was necessary). In
case the heretic had escaped the stake by confession, flames were painted on the garment,
which was sometimes of black. Those condemned to be burned bore in addition pictures
of demons thrusting the heretical into hell, while they wore tall miters similarly adorned
for additional prominence (the use of these, which were worn in different forms also by
bigamists and perjurers, was forbidden by the Roman Inquisition in 1596). In certain
cases, as an additional punishment, the sanbenito had to be worn in public even after the
release of the prisoner, exposing him to universal scorn and derision. After it was
removed, it was generally hung up in the parish church of the delinquent accompanied by
a fitting inscription, thus marking out the wearer and his family for lasting humiliation.
These memorials of shame were destroyed only with the abolition of the Inquisition in
the early years of the 19th century.

When the procession had arrived in the square where the auto-da-fe was to be celebrated,
amid general scorn the penitents would take their place on the scaffolding reserved for
them. A sermon would then be preached by some distinguished cleric, directed especially
against the penitents, upon whose heads a torrent of the most unsparing insults would be
poured. They would then appear one by one before the pulpit to hear their sentences,
which would hitherto have been kept a profound secret. This took some time, the
proceedings often being protracted into night and sometimes being spread over two or
even three days. The sentences of those "relaxed" to the secular arm were left to the last.
They were then formally condemned to death by the civil magistrate and escorted to the
quemadero (or brasero), the place of burning, by a detachment of soldiers, whose
presence was sometimes necessary to save them from a violent but more humane death
at the hands of the infuriated mob. To light the brand with which the pyre was kindled
was considered a religious duty and honor of the highest degree and frequently fell to the
lot of visiting royalty. The ashes of the victims were supposed to be scattered to the winds.
A repentant heretic would sometimes be strangled before being burned.

During the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, the auto-de-fe came to be regarded as a
great public spectacle in the Peninsula and its dependencies, vying in popular appeal with
bullfights. Especially splendid celebrations would sometimes be arranged in honor of
royalty: thus on Feb. 24/25, 1560, an auto-de-fe was held at Toledo to celebrate the visit
of Philip II and his bride, Isabella of Valois.

From the Encyclopaedia Judaica 443

The tribunal of Madrid was inaugurated on July 4, 1632, by an auto-de-fe in celebration of


the safe delivery of the queen; but the climax was reached on June 30, 1680 on the Plaza
Mayor of the same city, in the presence of Charles II and his bride, Marie Louise
d'Orleans, in honor of their marriage. At this, which began at six o'clock in the morning
and lasted 14 hours, no less than 51 persons were burned either in person or in effigy, the
king himself setting light to the brand which kindled the quemadero. This, as a great
court spectacle, formed the subject of a painting by Rizi. It was the last great solemnity of
its kind, as Philip V, the first of the Bourbon line, refused (in 1701) to grace with his
presence one arranged in honor of his accession, and the usage was henceforth
abandoned.

Accounts of the auto-da-fe, giving full details of the names of the victims and the nature
of their punishment, with particulars of who was burned alive, who after garroting, or
who in effigy, were subsequently printed and hawked about the streets: they form one of
the main sources of information for the proceedings. Similarly, the sermons preached at
the auto-da-fe were often subsequently published: in Portuguese alone about 15 are
extant in print. They speak of the penitents often as Jews, and in terms of the most
outrageous vituperation. Most noteworthy is the sermon delivered on Sept. 6, 1705, at the
great auto-da-fe held at Lisbon by the archbishop of Cranganore which was notable for
the violence of its language: it was answered by David Nieto, haham in London, in a
crushing pamphlet which is a masterpiece of polemic and was not without influence in
weakening the prestige and destroying the influence of the Inquisition in Portugal. On the
other hand, counterparts of these pamphlets were sometimes issued at Amsterdam and
elsewhere, where the local rabbis and poets would mourn the death of their martyrs in
sermons and elegies. A noteworthy example is the volume of collected pieces published
on the occasion of the martyrdom of Abraham Nunes Bernal at C6rdoba in 1655. In the
prayer books printed for the use of the Converso communities abroad at this period there
is included a special Ashkavah beginning "God of Vengeance" to be recited in the
synagogue in memory of "those burned for the Sanctification of the Name."

The Number of Victims

Spain. It is estimated that in Spain, from the establishment of the Inquisition down to
1808, the number of heretics burned in person was 31,912; those burned in effigy, 17,659;
and those reconciled de vehementi (see Procedure, below), 291,450— a total of 341,021 i
alb Even these immense figures are apparently exceeded by the usually careful Amador de
los Rios, who estimates that up to 1525, when the Moriscos first began to suffer, the
number of those burned in person came to 28,540; those burned in effigy to 16,520; and
those penanced to 303,847—making a total of 348,907 condemnations for Judaism in less
than half a century. On the other hand, Rodrigo, the apologist of the Inquisition, puts
forward the impossible assertion that less than 400 persons were burned in the whole
course of the existence of the Inquisition in Spain. H. C. Lea, the modern historian of the
Spanish

444 APPENDIX IV

Inquisition, hesitates to give any definite opinion. It was in the earlier and most ferocious
period of inquisitional activity that the secret Jews suffered above all, and they furnished
therefore a disproportionate number of the victims. In the later period, the number
greatly diminished. Thus, from 1780 to 1820 out of 5,000 cases, only 16 were of
Judaizing; but the majority of the charges at this period were light, and the sentences
imposed in most cases comparatively negligible.

Portugal. As far as Portugal and its dependencies are concerned, the figures can be given
with a much greater approach to precision. There are extant the records of approximately
40,000 cases tried before the Inquisition in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in Portugal,
the archives in this respect being virtually complete. The sentences were carried out at
autos-da-fe numbering something like 750 in all. In these, as far as can be ascertained,
upward of 30,000 persons were condemned, 1,808 of them being burned at the stake (633
in effigy and 1,175 in person) and 29,590 being penanced. In the two decades from 1701 to
1720, 37 persons were burned in person and 26 in effigy, while 2,126 were penanced.
From 1732 to 1742, 66 persons were burned. From 1721 to 1771, 139 persons were burned
in person, and 20 in effigy, while 3,488 were penanced.

Elkan Adler has compiled lists of a little less than 2,000 autos-da-fe which took place in
the peninsula and its dependencies from 1480 to 1826. This number should, however, be
further increased.

{Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Cecil Roth, Oxford/Jerusalem 1971)

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